Being Ron
by Solstice Muse
Summary: A sequel to Losing Ron. Now that Ron has finished school he embarks on his Auror training. Part of his training puts him right back at Hogwarts, however, and in daily contact with a certain teacher.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N This is the fic commissioned by Eckles in exchange foor his donation to the Teenage Cancer Trust. He requested a sequel to my fic, Losing Ron._

_This is a tough one because I never intended to carry it on, but it's for Rupert's chariity and my dear friend Wayne, so here goes..._

**Being Ron**

He carried his oversized travelling bag on one shoulder and his long, thin body was curved into an archer's bow shape from the weight of it.

He bumped the gate open with his foot and swayed down the little path, pausing to kick a gnome aside, before knocking on the back door of the Burrow with the toecap of his boot.

He shrugged out from under the strap cutting into his shoulder and let the heavy bag drop to his feet. He could hear movement inside the kitchen and braced himself for the inevitable.

The door swung open. His mother stood before him with a dusting of flour all the way up to her elbows and dough under her fingernails. She stared at him for a fraction of a second and then screamed his name as if she hadn't seen him in years and never expected to ever again.

"Ron!"

"Hi mu-" Ron began before doughy hands grabbed him by the front of his t-shirt and he was slammed into his mother's chest.

"Welcome back! How was France? Were the Delacours all fancy? Did they like my jam? Oh your hair's so light and your skin's so golden, you hardly look like a Weasley!"

"I burnt a few times but Gabrielle's mum is really fair and she had some spells and ointments that let me tan," Ron chuckled as his mother let him go, only as far as arm's length, and looked him up and down with admiration. "I've never had a tan before!"

"You look so well," she beamed, "did you like the food?" her face had already changed into her expression of concern that Ron was too skinny for a healthy young man.

"Yeah, the food's brilliant, lots of cream and cheese and butter and chocolate..."

Molly pulled him across the threshold and forced him to sit down in one of the chairs at the kitchen table before flicking her wand to levitate his bag inside. She turned and stroked his hair with a shake of the head.

"I've never seen it so light."

"Still not blonde, that's all that matters eh?" Ron grinned. "It was really sunny down there and we spent a lot of time outside."

Molly kissed him on the cheek and then turned to set about making a pot of tea.

"So where is Gabrielle?"

"Gone to Bill and Fleur's," Ron said before yawning and rubbing his face with both hands.

"You're tired? You should go and lie down dear."

"Nah, just the travelling, it knackers me out a bit." He smiled his 'winning mum over' smile at her and she chuckled.

"Oh I have missed you this summer," she said as she noticed the dough she'd been kneading before he arrived and scored it across the top before dropping it onto a baking tray and sliding it into the oven.

"Nah, bet you and dad loved having me out from under your feet," he said with a laugh in his voice.

"Honestly Ronnie, it's been too quiet. Nobody's at home any more and it's so nice to have you back after so long."

"Mum, it was only the summer," Ron said, rolling his eyes.

"It was more than one summer."

He stared at her and than rose from his chair to cross the room and hug her tightly. She crushed him in return and sniffed.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have gone away all summer. You only just got me back," he said, feeling guilty...no, feeling like an utter shit.

"Don't be silly, you weren't gone from your point of view, it's just that..." Molly cupped his face and paused long enough to sigh, "...I'd like to spend some time with you, sunshine."

Ron pulled out the chair beside his and patted the seat with a smile.

"Park yourself here then," Molly sat down and Ron held her hand. "I was feeling funny about asking you this before, 'cause all of us have left home and grown up and...Ginny's married and older than me and you and dad are older too."

"Ask me what?" Molly put a stop to his ramble as she leaned forward and gave a smile of encouragement.

"Well," he began before looking her in the eye, "you finally have an empty house and grown up children and I'm only eighteen and just left school and don't have a job set up or anything and I was hoping that you wouldn't mind me still living here for a bit."

"Ronnie," Molly was beaming, "you don't have to _ask _for permission to live in your own home. Of course we want you here. Of course we wouldn't mind. I kept your room the way it was because I always wanted you back in it."

Ron grinned and they leaned forward and hugged, tightly.

* * *

The family converged upon the Burrow for dinner and Harry had practically peed on Ron to reclaim him.

They had sat together, talked to everybody together, guessed Ron's exam results together and now, while Ron was wolfing down his third helping of dessert, Harry was planning how to get Ron into the department and working with him as a partner despite coming straight out of school.

"Maybe it could be an apprenticeship thing and Aurors who've done, say five years, take on a trainee and work with them and train them up one on one to be their partner."

"Five years eh?" Ginny's eyebrows were almost overtaking her hairline. "That would, rather conveniently, bring him to be trained by you or somebody who joined when you did."

"Well of course I mean me!" Harry scoffed and rolled his eyes.

Ron laughed around his mouthful of clotted cream.

"So what do you say? One on one training with me, we can spend all day together just like old times."

"Or last year, even," Ron reminded Harry that he'd simply missed Harry for a year in school and not for the last five years.

"Hermione said your transfiguration was up to Auror standards and you said you didn't bottle any of your exams didn't you?"

"There is a difference between bottling it and succeeding, y'know?" Ron said after swallowing.

"And you didn't even ask him if he wanted to be an Auror," Hermione said as she appeared behind Ron, dusting Floo powder off her shoulders and smiling at her friends.

"Hey!" Ron exclaimed and turned to hug her.

She laughed and hugged him back before stiffening slightly and clearing her throat.

"Good to see you both again."

Ron glanced over his shoulder and saw Gabrielle standing in the doorway holding a cup of tea.

"Good to 'ave proper tea again!" Gabrielle said with a smile as she raised her teacup to Hermione.

"So have either of you got your results yet?" Hermione asked as she took off her cloak.

"Nah, I thought the owls might come to France with them but still nothing." Ron said with a shrug. "I'd have thought you'd know exactly when we'd hear."

"I know nothing," Hermione said, dramatically.

Ron and Ginny laughed and Harry began to explain to Hermione about his amazing apprentice plan for Ron. Gabrielle looked at Ron as he started and tilted her head to one side, questioningly.

"It's just an idea," Ron said as he squeezed between Harry and his sister to explain to her, "and it's not as if I have anything else to do right now do I?"

"But a Saturday job will earn you enough to keep 'aving fun. If you work all the time you won't 'ave any time to spend your money!" Gabrielle laughed.

"Well, yeah, but I can't just think about how much money I need. I'm an adult now. I should pay mum and dad something like all the others had to once they left school."

Gabrielle looked, wide-eyed, at Ron and then turned to gape at his parents in the living room where they were talking to Percy and Kingsley.

"They make you _pay_ to live 'ere?"

"No, they don't _make _anybody pay their keep, it's just the done thing isn't it? Once you're an adult you pay your way."

"My parents would never think to charge me or Fleur for living with them!"

"So," Ron began to frown, "you're not going to give Bill any money out of your wages for living in his house?"

"He will expect me to?"

"He wouldn't ask for it but," Ron paused as Gabrielle looked relieved, "_I_ would expect you to. If you were working and they were putting you up then..."

"Oh! That will be fine then. I won't work and then he won't feel bad that I don't give him anything."

Ron stood and stared at her for a moment. She looked back at him with an open expression that slowly became a wicked smile.

"Oh you're such a nightmare!" Ron said as he shoved her.

"You are just gullible," she said through her laughter. "though we really don't do that in our family. Thank you for telling me otherwise I would 'ave looked awful."

"Not possible," Ron said as he gave her a peck on the lips and then quickly turned his attention back onto Harry when he noticed Fred and George sniggering and making gagging noises in their direction.

"So er, don't you have to clear this idea with Kingsley or something?" Ron said as he and Gabrielle rejoined the small group.

"The Aurors will want you, mate, don't you worry about that." Harry assured him.

"But not full time," Gabrielle interjected, linking her arm with his.

"I'm not working part time, Gabs," Ron said before noticing that Hermione was stepping away to join the others in the living room.

"But you don't 'ave to, not yet. You can pay your keeps and still 'ave some time for fun."

"Paying my _keep_ isn't the only reason I want full time work. If I want to be an Auror I can't do it half arsed. Death Eaters aren't part-time are they?"

Harry physically swelled with pride at this and threw his arm around Ron's shoulders, making himself look a little ridiculous as he had to stretch up on his tiptoes and practically hang from around Ron's neck, and began to gloat.

"See, I told you he was perfect Auror material!"

"What?" Molly said from the doorway.

They all turned to look at her as she stood frozen, empty glasses in each hand, face pale.

"Harry said he might be able to get me a-"

"No, it's too dangerous." Molly shook her head. "You're too young."

"I'm an adult, mum," Ron said, as kindly as he could, "I might not be as old as I should be but I'm still of age by over a year now."

"But you just came back."

"He doesn't have to move out to do it," Harry said, encouragingly.

"She doesn't mean that," Ron said before smiling at her, sadly. "I didn't lead that much of a sheltered life before I went away did I? I'm older and wiser now then I was when I was doing much more dangerous things. This time I'll be with people like Kingsley, it'll be organised, I'll be trained."

"We'd be happy to have you, Ron," Kingsley said before squeezing Molly's shoulder. "Thank you for inviting me, Molly. Goodnight."

Hermione took Kingsley's place and hugged Molly.

"You said you'd still have me, there's no changing your mind now," Ron warned her with a teasing smile.

"Of course I'm not changing my mind," Molly said as she sniffed and then huffed, "you'll make my hair white, Ronald Weasley, I swear it."

"Never happen," Fred said from the living room.

"We'd have caused it to all fall out like dad's before that!" George chipped in.

* * *

"I think it's best we start you off on familiar territory," Kingsley said as he studied a year planner that appeared to write itself as he spoke aloud. It wouldn't have surprised Ron to find out that Hermione had something to do with creating it. There was something a little too similar to her homework planners in the way it arranged time management.

"Still with me, Weasley?" Kingsley was lowering his head to catch Ron, thoughtful, downward gaze.

"Huh? Absolutely!" Ron said, brightly.

"So you will join the Tornadoes team to rig the Quidditch championship this year and finally relegate the Cannons, lovely. I'd have thought you'd need more persuading."

Ron felt as if he'd just agreed to drink Hagrid's sweat for the duration of the summer.

"Uh..." Ron began to stammer.

"Or maybe we can discuss you doing four days a week at Hogwarts on general security duties, like the other Aurors you saw patrolling while you were there. I think this will be the last year we do it to be honest."

"Oh right, guard duty, yeah. That sounds...fun." Ron was relieved that he wasn't being asked to destroy his one true love, the Cannons, but also a little deflated at the lack of excitement in his new job."

"For one day in every five you'll be trained by Harry, on the job, with top secret clearance." Kingsley said with a grin.

"Oh cool!" Ron beamed.

"But you have to pay your dues like Harry did when he was a newcomer, and that's Hogwarts patrol duty, all right?"

"Yeah," Ron nodded, enthusiastically, "anything you want."

"I'd be careful about making that offer, Ron, there are some who'd use it to play jokes on the new boy."

Ron's happiness faded on hearing this. His first thought was that he didn't think he could take being the butt of a practical joke from Harry. Harry knew him too well and could really...

"Harry will do his best to warn them off but it's just one of those rites of passage I'm afraid.," Kingsley explained.

Ron expelled some air and nodded, relieved to hear that Harry wouldn't be teasing him along with the others.

He was given instructions to Apparate to Hogsmeade and meet up with Hagrid, who would open the gates for him and show him to his sleeping quarters.

"I get sleeping quarters?"

"Well, most of the time you share a large tent divided into rooms with twin bunks but on this occasion Hagrid has invited you to sleep on his settee."

Ron felt a strange sense of foreboding about having to sleep in Hagrid's hut.

"And what will be done with my remains in the morning?" He kept a straight face as he was only partially joking.

Kingsley boomed with laughter and slapped Ron on the back.

"He's assured me the only creature in the hut with you will be Fang, don't worry."

_Fang, great, so a morning slobber shower every day then._

* * *

"So yer comin' te dinner in the Great Hall then, Ron?"

"I'm _guarding_ dinner in the Great Hall," Ron said with a roll of the eyes.

Hagrid found this immensely funny.

"Ron Weasley, protector of food."

"Well all those sharp knives and forks could lead too some kind of student uprising. You still let the hat sort people into Slytherin, ergo you still have a bunch of bastards you can't trust sitting down to dinner." Ron said, cockily.

"Now then, all Slytherins aren't bastards," Hagrid said, sternly.

"No, some are born in wedlock, I grant you that," Ron said with a nod.

"I can have you at the table as my guest!" Hagrid said, beaming.

"But I'm on guard duty." Ron sighed, sure that Hagrid would never grasp the concept until he was signed off Hogwarts duty for good.

Ron pushed down on the tiny mattress on the floor and then rolled out his sleeping bag on top of it. He turned to ask Hagrid for a pillow when he saw the astonished expression on the half giant's face.

"What yer putting yer pillow on the floor fer, Ron?"

"Huh?" Ron looked back down at the little mattress on the floor and realised that it wasn't a slightly too small bed for him, but an utterly massive pillow.

"Oh, I thought..."

"I was gonna pull the footrest out 'ere, see?" Hagrid pulled out the footrest from his huge armchair and it lengthened it enough for the average sized wizard to recline on. "I know yer legs'll dangle a bit over the end but s'better than the floor ain't it?"

"Yeah, ta Hagrid, sorry to put you out like this though," Ron said as he heaved the pillow off the floor and dropped it onto the armchair.

"No trouble fer you," Hagrid said as he winded Ron with another affectionate slap on the back. "I've got some feedin' te do so you settle in an' I'll see yeh at dinner."

"I'll wave from outside," Ron said, reminding his host yet again that he was working and not socialising.

Hagrid tramped out, waving a hand over his shoulder, while Fang lumbered along behind him. The door closed and Ron heaved a great sigh as he flung himself backwards onto the armchair-cum-bed. A cloud of dust billowed up around him and he sputtered and waved his arms to fan the air clear.

Eventually he gave up and stumbled outside for a lungful of clean air. Coughing, hands on his knees, he saw a pair of shoes step into his line of blurred vision.

"Are you okay?"

He looked up just as Hermione started slapping him on the back.

"Was it Hagrid's cooking? Are you choking?"

Ron shook his head and stood upright, face red from his coughing fit.

"Dust cloud," he wheezed as he jabbed his thumb over his shoulder into the hut, "armchair needs a good beating."

"Oh," Hermione said with a nod of understanding. "Poor thing. I tried to tell him that you'd probably want to share sleeping quarters with the other Aurors to help you bond and fit in but he wouldn't hear of it."

Ron suddenly remembered Kingsley's words about possible trouble from the other Aurors towards the 'new boy' and worried that separating himself from the group would only encourage them to single him out for practical jokes, or even worse, bitter humiliation.

Hermione seemed to read his troubled expression and touched his arm to snap him out of it.

"I'm sure you'll still get on with everybody."

Ron forced a smile and nodded.

"Yeah, I know, Hagrid just wanted to give me a friendly face away from Harry."

"My face is friendly too," Hermione said as she tilted her head to one side and smiled at him.

Ron rubbed the end of his long nose, snuffling away the last of the dust, and smiled back.

"It's nice to have you around...as a friend again."

"I was always your friend," Hermione said, sounding hurt.

"Well, I mean, for the last year you were my teacher. Now we're mates again."

She looked at him for an uncomfortably long time and then lightly shoved him.

"It might not have felt like it for either of us but we were friends last year too."

Ron cleared his throat one more time and a grass dart buzzed through the air and snagged on the sleeve of his jumper. He frowned and pulled it free and at that moment a small roll of paper unfurled and curly handwriting delivered his first orders to him as a new Auror.

_Stop arseing about and get over to the sleeping quarters for the briefing._

_WE don't come to YOU, special boy._

Ron screwed the paper up and swallowed. He knew not being part of the team was a bad idea.

"What is it?" Hermione asked with concern.

"Just got to start work now. I'll catch up with you later," he smiled and set off at a jog towards the Auror camp.

He paused for a moment to call over his shoulder to her.

"Oh and if you could explain to Hagrid why can't sit at the head table with him it'd really help me out."

"Consider it done," she called back, somehow knowing that Ron's request not to get any special treatment was connected to whatever was in that little grass dart.

* * *

_A/N I don't know how many parts this will end up but I thought it was about time I posted what I had of it. It's been giving me a lot of trouble!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Being Ron Part 2**

Ron had been on duty for eight hours, walking laps around the castle until Fang knocked him to the ground out of the blue and Hagrid stood over him with a bright lantern.

"Wha' yer still doing patrolling the grounds, Ron?"

"They told me to cover the perimeter until I was sent word everything was secure," Ron answered, hoping that Hagrid was being thick-headed again and not that he'd just been taken for a mug.

"Oh yeh daft sod, they must've forgot, the front doors were locked and all students are in their common rooms. They 'ave been fer a good two, three, hours now."

Ron's head fell.

"Right."

"Maybe they didn't think o'it because yer stayin' wi' me. Y'weren't missed...I mean teh say, it weren't tha' yeh were unaccounted fer, what wi' yeh bein..."

"I'm not one of them so they didn't give a shit if I knew patrol was over," Ron said, dejectedly.

Hagrid pulled Ron up from the ground by the front of his robes and then patted him with an uncharacteristic light touch on the back.

"Let's go 'ome."

"Yeah," Ron said as they set off walking.

Hagrid pulled a flask out from his hairy coat and handed it to Ron.

"Tea?"

"Ta."

They walked in silence, Fang snuffling along behind them, while Ron poured and drank two cups of sweet milky tea.

"Ermione 'ad a word wi' me." Hagrid's voice broke the silence eventually and Ron was snapped out of his introspective gloom.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Told me tha' y'were worried I might be making yer an outcast wi' yer new Auror friends."

"I bet she didn't say that," Ron said with a rueful shake of the head and a small smile.

"No, she was right tactful, but you shoulda said it tha' way teh me if y'were worried. I'd never want teh ruin yer chances at fittin' in."

"Being Harry's friend is gonna do that for me I think," Ron admitted. "They were already thinking of me as having special treatment before they even met me. Kingsley said so too. I'm buggered if I try to prove myself to them and I'm..."

"Screwed if yeh don't?"

Ron smiled at Hagrid properly this time. Hagrid slapped his hand on Ron's back with the same weighty over generosity as usual. Ron stumbled forward a few steps and Fang began to lope ahead as the glow from the hut grew brighter and larger.

"I am glad I'm staying with you, Hagrid," Ron said as he folded his arms tightly across his chest, "'cause right now I can't imagine the humiliation of walking into that tent with them waiting for me."

"You got friends 'ere, they ain't got no one but each other an' they're as good as strangers, an' you got more experience in your school years then they'll get in any o'their trainin' and guard duty on a safe school."

"I also got...I mean I've also missed five years. Everybody grew and learned and there's five years of history and changes I wasn't around for. I'm some school kid who doesn't know anything new. Doesn't know anything at all."

"Didn't stop yeh doin' well in yer exams did it? Didn't stop yeh winning the Quidditch cup. Didn't stop yeh gettin' a lovely girl like yer Gabrielle."

Ron smiled.

"Stopped me being able to be with my first lovely girl though didn't it?"

Hagrid stopped walking and stared at Ron's hunched back until he stopped plodding along and turned to look back at his giant friend.

"Y'know," Hagrid began, paused and then started walking with Ron again, "the older yeh get, the less those five years'll matter. I know they mattered a lot last year. She coulda lost 'er job and you were still a lad at school wi' pretty things 'is own age seemin' teh be a better fit, but..."

"Gabrielle wasn't like Lavender," Ron said firmly. "She's not like that. I'm not using her, I really like her."

"I never said tha' now did I?" Hagrid said with a change of tone, less thoughtful and more plain speaking. "She's what you needed. Everybody went ahead without yeh and left yeh behind an' she caught yeh up. She's a good girl an' a great friend t'yeh. Yeh'd have been lonely last year without her. All your friends grown up an' gone."

"She's not just convenient though," Ron said, firmly.

"I know tha'. Yer not shallow an' nobody thinks y'are."

Fang was scratching at Hagrid's door, impatiently.

Ron searched the darkness, thoughtfully.

"Ron?"

"Gabs never thought of me as a teaspoon. She thinks I'm like...a ladle or something. It feels better when your girlfriend thinks your a ladle."

Hagrid pushed open the door to his hut and stepped aside to guide Ron in with a light push against his back.

"Maybe y'need teh lie down after all tha' walkin' on an empty stomach. I saved yeh some food from dinner. You 'ave a kip an' I'll heat it up fer yeh."

Ron sat on the footstool part of his makeshift bed and looked up at Hagrid, glumly.

"She's the only place I fit in these days."

"Yeh fit right in at Hogwarts," Hagrid said, warmly, "an' yeh always fit right in 'ere. Those Auror wannabes aren't worth yer-"

Ron's stomach grumbled and they both sniggered.

"They definitely ain't worth yeh goin' hungry!"

Ron got up from the footstool and followed Hagrid to the table, where three platters were covered in cloths, waiting for him to take his pick from the leftovers.

* * *

Harry had been waiting for the owls to arrive from Ron, bemoaning how boring routine Hogwarts patrols were, but after three days nothing had turned up and Harry couldn't help but feel a little put out.

"You want him to get bored of Auror duty?" Hermione frowned down at her friend's face as it bobbed up and down in the flames of her fireplace.

"No, not bored of being an Auror, just...not having as much fun as he would be with me."

"I'd hardly say he was having fun, Harry. He's taking this very seriously." Hermione assured him.

This didn't make him feel the least bit better.

"Ron, taking something seriously? Ron who we both know? Ron who is still a teenager? That Ron?"

"Yes, _our_ Ron. Our teenage Ron who didn't have a frivolous adolescence and grew up just as fast as we did. The Ron who didn't think he'd live to see his twenties, is taking his brand new and first ever job seriously."

"But what about out of hours? Does he spend time with you?"

"I have marking and lesson plans when he's not on duty. I also take my job seriously."

Harry narrowed his eyes at her.

"You take Ron even more seriously and you know everything about him while he's there don't you?"

"I am not spying on my good friend like an obsessed ex girlfriend, Harry Potter!"

"So he's not seen much of Hagrid either then, no?"

"On the contrary, he's spending every moment he's not on duty with hi-" Hermione stopped, scowled at Harry's smug face and then huffed. "Very well, I've asked after him, like a friend would, and Hagrid says...Ron's working very hard and doing very well."

"And?"

"And eating like Grawp after a fast."

"And?"

"And finding the chair comfortable enough to sleep on."

"_And?_" Harry practically growled.

"I'm not telling you." Hermione folded her arms and looked away.

"Oh now you have to!"

"I don't, I won't, and that's an end to it."

"Right, I'm coming through, move out the way." Harry's shoulders began to emerge from the flames and Hermione shoved him back with both hands.

"He won't thank you for waving a big flag around him, bellowing that he deserves special treatment because he's your friend, and singling him out even more!"

Harry looked furious.

"So that's it! I knew the others would be gits to him, I fucking knew it!"

"He's a big boy, bigger than both of us, and he won't thank you. Let him prove himself."

"But..."

"Hagrid's been great with him. He's doing really well." Hermione assured him.

"But..."

"I'll pop over and see him tomorrow, give him another friendly face, I promise everything's fine."

Harry looked downcast.

"He already protected Hogwarts, from the inside, it's not fair that he should do donkey work like the rest of them." He grumbled.

"But he wants to be like the rest of them. He has to be just like every other Auror otherwise how can he work with them as a team or even as a leader?"

Harry sulked. It was because she was right. It was also because he hated that Ron was having a hard time and he was of no help to the situation whatsoever.

* * *

"Hey, Weasley, you 'guarding' the Quidditch match on Friday?"

Ron gave a smile and a discreet wave to one of the seventh year Ravenclaws who he'd played against the year before.

"Move along there, chop chop," he said as he waved them onward.

The student laughed and straightened his back as he set off in a formal march down the corridor.

"Hi Ron!"

"Cool robes Ron."

"Ron, how's Gabrielle?"

"Are you here to maintain security or to pal around with your mates?" One of the other Aurors snapped from behind him.

"I'm maintaining the security of people who happen to know my name," Ron said, biting back hiss temper as much as he could.

"Well maybe you should disguise yourself as a _proper_ Auror in future," the spiteful little twerp sneered.

Just as Ron's ears were about to betray him by bursting into flames of humiliation McGonagall passed by.

"Kevin Lillycrap, you're one of the Auror team too?"

"Uh, yes, professor."

McGonagall blinked once, sniffed and then shook her head.

"Amazing. I mean Weasley here only just passed his exams and yet you've managed to get into the same programme despite failing yours dismally two years in a row. However did you manage it?"

Ron almost choked on his delight. Lillycrap looked as if he wanted to dig himself a hole to hurl himself into.

"I enrolled in a special...course, over last summer, and got enough passes to join the training programme." Lillycrap answered, head almost steaming with embarrassment.

"Oh, the remedial summer NEWTs. Well done. An d how many times did you take that before passing?"

Lillycrap looked as if he wished McGonagall was a Death Eater so he could hex her on the spot, or at least gag her, but was saved as one of his fellow smug bastards called for him to escort some first years to Greenhouse three for Herbology.

He mumbled his excuses and fled from the fiercely judgemental witch before she could crush him any more.

Ron bit both lips from the inside to keep from laughing and McGonagall wiggled her eyebrows at him.

"I agree with the students, it is nice to see you, Weasley."

Ron nodded and made a muffled sound and she left him without another word. He'd almost cart-wheeled back to Hagrid's hut at the end of his watch and playfully wrestled with Fang as they staggered through the door.

While man and beast clattered into a footstool the size of a small table, a small owl whizzed around them and hooted enthusiastically.

Ron, finally pinned beneath Fang's bulky folds of furry flesh, yanked an arm free and grabbed Pig from the air. He manipulated the roll of parchment from the bird's leg, with a much practiced dexterity, and then shook it open.

"Gerroff Fang, you're flattening me!" He grunted as he attempted to roll the dog off him while reading the letter and smiling to himself.

"Maybe I could coax him off you with some of this alarming meat?"

Ron jumped at the sound of Hermione's voice and Fang's weight left his body to lollop over to greet her.

"Oh hi!" Ron grinned as he staggered up from the floor. "I was just...getting beaten up by a fifteen stone dog."

She laughed and then plucked a purple veined piece of steak from a smelly stack of something surrounded by buzzing flies and threw it to Fang. The dog wolfed it down, happily, and Ron brushed himself down and then set the crumpled letter onto the table before turning to make a pot of tea.

"You looked very professional," she said, as she sat down on an oversized chair and stroked Pig's dishevelled feathers, "only an Auror could have put up such a brave resistance."

Ron smiled and rolled his eyes.

"I keep telling myself I'm paying my dues," he said as he leaned against the wall and waited for the water to boil, "the thing is, I never thought I had that many dues to pay for. What do I need all those dues for, anyway? If I just send them back I'll have less to pay off, right?"

"Hard luck," Hermione scoffed, "I had to pay mine when I became a teacher and I hadn't acquired any dues. I put in the work, I passed the exams, I read all the books...but I still had those pesky dues to pay for."

Ron laughed and then remembered the letter on the table. He leaned forward, picked it up, and crammed it into his back pocket without folding it.

"Was I interrupting? I can leave you in peace if you like?" Hermione offered, tilting her head towards the door.

"No, just a letter from Gabs, I'll read it later." Ron turned to busy himself with the teapot again.

"How is she?"

"Dunno, I didn't read past the opening platypus," Ron said, smirking to himself.

"Platitudes," Hermione corrected, tutting and throwing a knowing smile his way. "If I didn't know better I'd swear you got things wrong just to have me correct you."

"Would I do that?" Ron said with a laugh as he looked over his shoulder at her with a wide grin of admission.

"You used to do it all the time. You may be an Auror now but you're still Ron."

Ron's smile faded and he drummed his fingers against the biscuit tin, impatiently

"Still being Ron is kinda...a pain when it comes to being an Auror actually."

She didn't say a word. They both knew she understood exactly what he meant. She'd kept quiet to let Ron know she was willing to act as though there was nothing wrong if that was what he wanted.

"Maybe Lillycrap was right," he went on, "I should have probably thought about training in disguise. I'd have just been one of them that way."

"Do you want to be one of them or do you want to be exceptional?" Hermione asked him as the kettle began to whistle. "Because when you're you, you're exceptional."

"You're biased," Ron said as his ears blushed.

"I'm not," Hermione said, holding back on something and then relaxing a little to say it again. "I assure you, I'm not."

"You were gonna say 'but' weren't you?" Ron said with a half smile that didn't travel across the rest of his face.

"I was going to say 'despite', actually."

"Despite what?" Ron lifted the kettle, filled the teapot and then folded his arms to wait for her to answer.

"_Despite_ the fact you left me for a younger model," she began, "I still think very highly of you."

Ron swallowed and stared at her.

"It...It wasn't because you got olde-"

"Even when I see you kissing somebody else I think well of you, and that means I can't be bias. I'm right to think highly of you because you've always given me good reason to."

Ron felt Gabrielle's letter burning in his pocket and his throat choking on all the things he wanted to admit to Hermione.

"I don't want things to be awkward," she said as he squirmed, "let's just have some tea."

"You're the same Hermione to me," Ron blurted, turning to face her full on and clutching the biscuit tin with both hands. "Er...Bourbon?"

He held out the tin and Hermione shook her head.

"No thanks."

"You're not an old woman...you were always older than me anyway...and you were always more mature. But you were Professor Granger and, that's very you and it suits you and everything, but I wasn't guarding your class I was _in_ it."

"It was inappropriate, we both agreed that." She nodded.

They shared a moment of silence before Ron held the tin out again.

"Custard Cream?"

"No thank you."

"Because I know you waited for me and I should have waited for you but I barely spent any time with you and I was with Gabs every day and she's a really great person and she made me fit in and...just fit...again. Chocolate Hob Nob?"

"I know and I'm not angry that we didn't, no thank you by the way, become more after school ended. It was still very inappropriate."

"But I don't care about inappropriate," Ron said admitted, "I'm me, I'm always inappropriate." He paused for her to laugh, which she did. "We just weren't the same and...we were never gonna be were we?"

Hermione looked taken aback at this.

"What?"

"You were always so much more sophisticated than me. If I hadn't disappeared for five years we'd have split up by now because you've leapt so far ahead of anything I could have been."

"You know that kind of talk makes me angry," she warned.

"I know I can be better. I know I'll show 'em all, those gits in that tent out there, but if I hadn't had to spend a year on my own I'd never have had the balls to be alone at all."

Hermione looked as if she understood, she didn't like understanding but she understood, and tucked her hair behind her ear with a single nod.

"No matter what you say, Ron, I know you'd have been a great man had you not gone away. And to call me sophisticated is laughable. I'm a bookish spinster, not a glamour-puss." She laughed as she looked away.

Ron found himself clinging to the biscuit tin and set it down. He scratched the back of his hand and then pulled the lid off the tin. The lid made a rattling noise as he put it down and he peered inside.

"He's got Garibaldis." He said, eyebrows lifting.

"Are you sure they're Garibaldis and not just cream crackers with dead insects squashed onto them."

"I'm sure I'd rather chance one of them than one of these fig rolls," he said as he lifted out a suspiciously oozing biscuit.

They shared a chuckle. Ron sat down and then remembered the tea stewing in the pot. He was about to get up again but Hermione offered and began pouring the brew.

"You're pure class, y'know Hermione?" Ron suddenly spoke up.

"It's only tea," she chuckled.

"No, I mean," Ron shuffled forward on his seat, "I can get a pretty girl who's way out of my league. Weasleys are lucky like that, we get some beautiful women thinking we're worthwhile, but the classy ones... me and you are a different class."

Hermione set his cup of tea down before him and looked at him with the same troubled authority she'd had the year before.

"Didn't anybody ever tell you all that glitters isn't gold?"

"Glisters," Ron said, unable to help himself.

Hermione stared, beamed and then dropped down into her seat, clutching her cup of tea.

"Don't tell me you have no class. Now gimme a biscuit."


	3. Chapter 3

**Being Ron Part 3**

"Am I going to have to muzzle you, Auror Potter?"

Kingsley waited for Harry to realise that he was acting like a hyperactive child who'd been told he was going to get a puppy.

"But...he can handle it. He'll be an asset to the case and what's the point of bringing him in once a week if you just have him sitting around watching us filing case notes?"

"I know what Ron can do and that you want to show off his many talents but he's been on the job for a week. If you throw him into the maze with the Minotaur armed with nothing but a ball of string you can't expect it to work out as well as it did for Theseus."

"I have no idea what you just said," Harry said, blinking in order to animate his blank expression somewhat.

Kingsley rubbed at his temples and groaned.

"Imagine me telling you the incantation to conjure a Patronus and then expecting you to produce a corporeal Patronus first time."

Harry considered this.

"No," he said with a shake of the head, "because Ron's not totally new to this dangerous stuff. Ron has more experience than half of the Aurors on the team."

"Ron gained that experience gradually over time. Don't throw him in the deep end just because he can swim."

"I'm giving him something exciting to do," Harry said with a look of rebellion, "he's been bored enough this week. We're doing something productive, something stimulating, something that makes him feel important."

Kingsley snorted and pointed over Harry's shoulder.

"I don't think he needs _you_ to give him that."

Harry turned and choked on his own gasp as he saw Gabrielle giving Ron a very thorough goodbye and good luck wish on the steps of the Ministry.

"I think she likes the robes," Kingsley muttered before slapping Harry on the back. "Take him on the safe mission and stop expecting him to hit his stride right away. He's the Ron who got left behind, not the one you idealised for five years."

"The Ron who went missing was a bloody good person!" Harry snapped.

"Yes he was, so don't ask him to change," Kingsley said before turning to walk away.

Harry looked back at his best friend and frowned.

* * *

Gabrielle's hands were everywhere. Ron kept giggling into her mouth when her fingers stroked down his sides towards his belly.

"Ron!" She slapped him and then nestled her head upon his chest as they hugged.

"I'm sorry, it tickles," he chuckled.

"You are supposed to be a big 'ard Auror."

"Aurors can be ticklish."

Gabrielle rose up onto her toes and kissed him again. Ron lost his hands in her hair and she moved her hands around his waist and up his back. Ron giggled again.

"Oh come on," Gabrielle huffed, "you never used to be _this_ ticklish!"

"It's just a bit public," Ron said as he looked one way, into the street, and the other into the building. He spotted Harry watching them and wriggled out of Gabrielle's arms. "Shit, Harry's looking."

Gabrielle straightened her dress and glanced around for a moment before spotting Harry. She smiled and waved. He gave a limp wave back and then turned to hammer his finger against the button beside the lift doors.

"Ah look, 'arry is going," she said before flinging herself back at Ron again. "I 'ave missed you."

"It's been four days," Ron said before her lips covered his.

After several noisy kisses Gabrielle hung from his neck and looked up at him.

"But I've 'ad you with me all the time for so long. I miss 'aving you to talk to."

"Sorry," Ron said as he leant down to kiss her lips and smile, "I'll Floo call next week, I promise."

"And send your little doggie?"

"Mon petit chien," Ron nodded into another, softer kiss, "oui."

Gabrielle sank into his body and groaned.

"Oh I love it when you speak French."

"Well that's about all I've got so don't get too excited."

"Oh you know more than that, I know you do."

Ron glanced around before leaning in close and whispering.

"Donnez moi un sandwich au fromage. Je ne peux pas manger escargot." With that he shuddered and Gabrielle laughed.

"You won't eat snails but you'll eat 'aggis."

"Don't slag off 'aggis, McGonagall will give you a death glare."

Gabrielle started kissing Ron again, while pausing to murmur into his mouth every once in a while.

"When...do you...finish 'ere?"

"Mmmumph."

"I'll...come after...we can finish...this at Fleur's."

Ron twisted his lips away and panted into her face.

"I'm going home after work," he said with a shake of the head.

"We can do this in your room too," Gabrielle said with a wicked grin. "And maybe we can..."

"Gabs," Ron held her at arm's length and took a step away, "I'm at the Burrow for the weekend. I promised mum I'd spend some time with her."

Gabrielle shimmied out of his grip and back into his body. She pulled him down by the back of his head and reached up to kiss him again.

"I can do things your muzzer can't."

"Really, numph..." his explanation was muffled by the Frenchest of kisses. For a moment Ron lost himself, until hands slipped underneath his shirt. "Seriously..." Ron managed to break away to say, but Gabrielle's insistent kisses kept on coming, "...she's missed me an...muhhh...I promised."

"I've missed you too," Gabrielle purred.

"I know, this I could have done with sooner..." he was attacked by her mouth again and kept kissing her back until he flinched at the sensation of a hand sinking beneath his waistband. "Gabs, no!"

"Later then, in your room," she tilted her head to kiss his neck.

"Uhh...God, that's...Look, no!"

Gabrielle finally stopped to pout up at him.

"You missed me for four days. Mum's still not really had me back."

"'ow do you mean?"

"I was gone for five years and then I went to school for a year and then spent all summer with you, now I'm with the Aurors...I need to spend this weekend with her. I need to spend a few weekends with her."

"So when do we get to...?" she tailed off and waved her hand away to one side.

Ron leaned forward and gave her a light peck.

"Maybe we can meet in Hogsmeade during the week. I really need to see you during the week."

She reached up and cupped his face with one hand.

"It is really that bad?"

"Hagrid's becoming my best mate, Gabs," Ron said with a forlorn expression.

She smiled at him and nodded.

"We will get a room at the Three Broomsticks and 'ave some time to ourselves, yes?"

Ron gulped and nodded. Gabrielle kissed him again and then bounced backwards on the balls of her feet.

"Don't 'ave too much fun without me."

"I'll try," he said with a wave.

As she turned and left the building Ron set off for the lift to catch up with Harry. He noticed Lillycrap and his cronies examining a floor plan of the building to find out where they needed to go. Lillycrap was staring at Ron in a way he obviously didn't mean to be so noticeable.

"That was a _girl_, Lillycrap, a girl you don't have to pay for. Bet you didn't know they existed eh?" Ron jeered as he passed and hopped into the lift.

The others made to squeeze in with him so they could follow him to the briefing room.

"This one's full, I'm afraid. I'm sure you can find your own way there though, can't you?" Ron blocked the doors and pushed the button to close the doors.

"I'd say that was mean spirited but I've heard you've been on the receiving end of worse from them."

Ron jumped and spun around to see his dad smiling at him.

"Oh hi," Ron said happily, before registering what he'd just heard, "who's been talking to you?"

Arthur put a hand on his son's shoulder and gave a squeeze.

"A parent doesn't squeal on his spies. Besides, it's nice to know where you are...how you are. It's one of my little luxuries I hope you can forgive."

Ron realised his mother wasn't the only one who had missed him more that she let on.

"I'll see you at home, yeah?" Ron asked as the lift doors opened with a ping.

"You will, I'm looking forward to it," Arthur said with a warm smile and a light pat on the shoulder, "have a good day and be careful."

"Not going near any cupboards, I promise," Ron said as he watched his father step out of the lift, "and Harry's watching me too. Nothing to worry about."

* * *

Lillycrap was looking slightly grey in the face. Ron was holding the brass pin Harry had given him to jab into the assignments board. He was at the front of the queue, thanks to some interference from Harry, and under instructions to claim the secondary investigation team spot with the Potter pin.

Harry clearly believed that going for the second spot was a casual no pressure job for a first timer like Ron. He was so transparent sometimes. Ron took another look back at Lillycrap and the trainee was now taking slow, deep breaths while trying to control his visible nausea.

"What's with him?" Ron asked a Lillycrap crony between them.

"He's seventh in line, what d'you think is the matter 'number one'?" The crony said with a bitter scowl.

Ron looked back at the board. Of all the assignments on display there were the two prime spots for investigating, two for gathering witness statements, one for dealing with the family of the dead man, one for sitting in the office and doing the paperwork as it came in and one for the examination of the body.

The job nobody wanted was the paperwork. Ron took another look back at Lillycrap. He guessed that he'd happily trade the paperwork over the body, the only two jobs that were going to be left by the time he got to the front.

"Weasley?" An impatient voice was repeating the call forward to claim the assignment.

"Sorry, um," he looked to the trainee behind him, "you go ahead of me. I just need to talk to someone."

The other trainee looked ecstatic that they got first pick and hurried forward. Harry looked baffled and Ron waved to gain Lillycrap's attention.

"What?"

Ron hesitated, the man was an arsehole to him after all, but at the same time he had to work with all of these people as a team.

"You got dead guy or paperwork right?" Ron asked.

"Yes okay, gloat some more, Potter's pet!" Lillycrap spat.

"You want the paperwork but your Auror's gonna be pissed off with you if you chose that over anything else, _right_?"

Lillycrap glared at him.

"Yes."

"Auror Weasley, it's your turn. Or are you going to let another go ahead of you?"

Ron held up a finger to the lead Auror and then looked back at Lillycrap.

"Have you ever seen a dead body before, Lillycrap?"

The sick looking Auror shook his head.

"Weasley?"

Ron turned and stepped forward, raising Harry's brass pin. He pressed the pin into the spot for the examination of the corpse. He turned to walk back to a stunned looking Harry and muttered, under his breath.

"They're not ready for dead bodies, we've seen lots. Why don't we all work to our strengths for the first assignment, yeah?"

Harry smiled at Ron and slapped his shoulder.

"He's still going to be a bastard, y'know?"

"I know," Ron nodded, glancing across as Lillycrap pushed his pin into the family liaison space, avoiding his eyes, and shuffling off to rejoin his partner, "but he'll be a bastard who owes me."

* * *

The fireplace blazed green and Ron stepped out and into the kitchen of the Burrow.

"Ronnie!" Molly flung her arms up and then threw herself at her son.

"Hi mum," he chuckled as he gave her as much of a hug as he could manage with his arms pinned to his sides.

"Have you had a nice time with Harry? Nothing too dangerous, I hope."

"Very safe, studying a...sample from a crime scene," Ron said before kissing his mother on the cheek and then leaning over the stove to inhale his dinner through his long nose. "Mmmm, I've missed this."

Molly beamed and set about pulling Ron's Auror robes off his shoulders.

"Mum!" Ron protested. "I could be naked under these."

"Nothing I haven't seen before. You weren't as bashful when you were six, young man, I couldn't keep your clothes on you."

"_Mum!_" Ron cringed, despite the fact there was nobody around to hear this mortifying memory.

Molly cupped his face with her hand and smiled up at him.

"Everybody grew up so fast, and you...you stayed my baby for a little longer."

"Seriously, mum," Ron almost begged her to stop.

"You still grew too fast, even now, a big Auror off training." She started fussing over the dinner. "Can you set the table, dear?"

"Yeah," Ron said as he pulled open the cutlery draw and scooped up a handful of mismatched silverware.

"Ronnie, no, only three of us for dinner, remember?"

Ron paused and looked at the dozen or so knives and forks in his hand and suddenly realised that the house wasn't a full one any more.

"Right, sorry, just me, you and dad."

It threw him a little to be setting the table at the Burrow for three. Then it hit home just how much it must meant to his parents to have him back at home. They'd have sat at the table with just each other for the last few years.

The Weasleys were never a table for two family.

Outside the Burrow sounded the crack of Apparition and Ron opened the door for his father.

"Ah, thank you, Ron." He was in good spirits, as ever, and set down his tatty briefcase before planting a kiss on his wife. "Another productive day, family feud today. A Muggleborn left for her final year at Hogwarts and set a bunch of Wheezes booby traps all over the house. We've been back and forth all week putting things right and today everybody's joints reversed. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to catch a man running like an ostrich."

"Well you should have run normally, Arthur."

Ron snorted at this and his dad caught his eye and grinned.

"The man was running like the ostrich, my dear, his legs bent that way."

"Oh," she said, still not following this description as well as a chuckling Ron. "Well did you catch him?"

"He ran into a wall. It's very hard to run away from somebody when your legs are on backwards."

Ron finished setting the table and pulled out a chair to sit down and watch the familiar routine. He took comfort in the fact that it hadn't changed from how he remembered it.

True, there weren't any siblings or Harry to turn to and roll his eyes with but they were still the same old mum and dad.

"Good first day at the Ministry, Ron?" Arthur asked him as he tucked a napkin into his collar.

"It was okay. I'm owed a favour and I didn't mess anything up."

"Did you arrest anybody?" Molly asked, trying to sound enthusiastic about such things but her worry about her son's dangerous job showing through.

"No, just helping the proper Aurors with their investigation. They won't have me wrestling ostrich men to the ground any time soon." He teased.

"You are a proper Auror," Arthur said with pride. "You're keeping everybody's children safe."

Ron looked down at his knife and fork and tried not to think about how crappy his week had been.

"Yeah," he rolled back his shoulders and lifted his head high, chest attempting to inflate despite being too narrow to really pull off such a thing, "I'm feeling pretty good about what I'm doing. Lack of any action's a good thing after all eh? No danger for anyone."

Molly beamed at this.

"If you wanted to flex your muscles you could help me in the vegetable patch tomorrow," she suggested.

"Is that a euphemism or a nick name or something?" Ron asked with a suspicious squint.

His dad laughed and his mother huffed and wiped her hands on her pinny.

"All the veg is on the turn and I have to preserve as much as I can," she explained as she opened the blazing hot oven and her hair was pushed back from her face by the escaping hot air. "I'm going to make some chutney."

Ron slumped in his seat.

"I'm going to be digging up onions aren't I?" He groaned.

His dad grinned at him.

"I'd help you son but...oh my back," he rubbed at his back for effect, "and I'm getting on now while you're so young and fit."

"Hold on, has my five year vanishing act just been used as an excuse for me spending my Saturday digging?"

"Not all digging, I need all the tomatoes picked too!" Molly said as if turning his fingers black would be a nice rest from digging.

He never understood that. Tomatoes were red or orange or yellow, when they weren't ripe yet they were green, but no matter what colour the fruit or the vine he'd always get black fingers just from picking at one plant.

"I'll come out with sausage rolls and Cornish pasties for you. A hardworking young man needs a full stomach."

Ron looked at her with narrowed eyes.

"And fairy cakes!" She blurted.

"With icing?" Ron asked, cocking one eyebrow.

"With pink icing," Molly nodded.

"Mum!" Ron scowled. "I'm not a baby or a girl."

"White icing with rainbow coloured hundreds and thousands." Molly said with a knowing nod.

"That's better," Ron said with a dignified sniff as he moved his napkin beside his knife and waited for the space before him to be filled with food.

Molly and Arthur shared a look and smiled.

Their boy was really home.


	4. Chapter 4

**Being Ron Part 4**

Ron was unearthing the last of the onions, while his mother tied them together with string and hung them in bunches from the trellis the runner beans had been growing on, when Hermione arrived.

She had been beaming and clutching a roll of parchment but, while her mouth opened to announce the reason for her unexpected arrival, no words of greeting were spoken as she caught sight of the person she had come to see.

Ron was stripped to the waist, skin sweaty and dirty from his afternoon of hard labour, and hair damp and clinging to his face. He was hardly a vision of Adonis but there was something very manly about the skinny young man grunting as he drove the fork into the earth and wrestled out the matted roots and king Edward potatoes.

His shoulder blades protruded from his back like wings fighting to break through the skin and his shoulders and arms took on a whole new shape when he used muscles in them he never normally used.

Hermione felt the scroll crumple in her hand and snapped out of her trance at the realisation that she was gripping it so tightly that she'd screwed it up in the middle.

"Hermione dear!" Molly said as she clambered over the mini harvest scattered in baskets all over the ground between them with her arms wide.

"Hello Molly," Hermione had to clear her throat to sound a little more like herself, "putting him to work I see."

Ron looked over his shoulder at wiped his brow with his forearm. He smiled at her. She noticed a smear of dirt on his nose but didn't say anything about it. She simply waved the crumpled scroll at him and smiled back.

"Apparently if you want heavy duty gardening done, you call an Auror," Ron said before driving the prongs of the gardening fork into the soil and leaving it standing before him.

He wiped his dirty hands on the seat of his jeans and approached her with a tilt of the head.

"That for me?"

"Uh...YES!" She snapped out of her reverie and thrust the parchment at him. "Your results came. the came to Hagrid's hut and I thought you wouldn't want to wait until Monday so I brought it...to you...here."

Ron's smile had slowly faded into an expression of dread. As he paled his skin lost the healthy glow of hard work and the glistening droplets covering his skin made him look as if he'd broken into a cold sweat.

"I know it'll be all right," Hermione said as she stepped closer and pushed the scroll into his roughened hand.

"I forgot about these, they were so late, school already started. I thought I'd got away with starting the Aurors without NEWT results," he babbled.

"I happen to know that they did come during the summer but a certain ratbag...colleague who no longer works at the school...otherwise I'd have killed her..." Hermione kept having to stop herself from getting angry or smirking, she was there on a professional capacity after all. "Let's just say you had to be reassessed and marked again because there was an accusation of cheating."

"I was accused of cheating on the NEWTs?" Ron said in horror. "I'll lose my job before I even really started it!"

"Not you, Ron, me. I was accused of _fixing_ the results." Hermione nodded down to the parchment, that Ron was now crushing with his own hand.

He took a deep breath, pushed his hair away from his face, and then broke the wax seal and unfurled the parchment. He looked at it for a moment, then leaned in and looked closer, and then his eyes widened.

"Wow."

Hermione smiled.

"I take it they believed you didn't get any outside help then."

"Oh wow," Ron said as he put a hand to his mouth and reread the results one more time, "this is...you gave me a..."

Just as a stunned Ron looked up at Hermione to boggle at how well his transfiguration mark was she held up both her hands and cut him off.

"I didn't mark your exam, I just taught you for a year, that was given to you by the impartial examiner."

"Wow," Ron said as he shook his head and looked down at the marks with an exhalation of astonishment.

"And considering I gave you some distractions in class, some unprofessional distractions and quite unnecessary treatment, I'd say you did wonderfully."

Ron looked at her and frowned.

"You were a great teacher. You _are_ a great teacher."

She might have hugged him had he been fully dressed. There was no way she was going to press herself against a sweaty, grimy, soil-flecked, malodorous body.

Ron chuckled.

"It's okay, I wouldn't hug me either," he said as he lifted an arm and sniffed at his armpit, "I reek!"

Hermione laughed but couldn't help dwell upon what she had been holding back for. While getting dirty was one of her least favourite things she'd have got dirty to congratulate Ron for wonderful exam results. She'd stopped because she didn't want to enjoy it. She didn't want to be close enough to think of things so much dirtier than the body before her.

Ron stooped to pick up his discarded t shirt and wiped himself with it. The sheen was smeared away, dirt smudged deeper in, and the lose specks of grit fell away. He threw the now filthy t shirt over his shoulder and nodded towards the house.

"I'll go in for a shower, you wait until you hear water running and then give her this," he handed the parchment to her, "by the time I come back down she should be vaguely tolerable."

"Ron!" Hermione slapped his arm and then gave a shrug to admit that Molly would be unbearably proud of him.

He was about to step over a large sack of potatoes behind him when she grabbed his arm and held him back.

"Wait, I just wanted to let you know I'm really pleased for you. I knew you had it in you. I'm so proud."

"So I escape mum but get you instead," Ron teased.

"My pride comes at a reasonable volume," Hermione pointed out.

She let her arm drop but Ron caught her hand on the way down and squeezed it.

"Nobody ever thought I could be good at...well, anything, apart from you. Percy sometimes, but mainly you." Ron grudgingly admitted.

"Now that's not true."

"It is," Ron insisted with a nod and another squeeze of her hand, "you really did believe I could do better."

"Well remember this next time you tell me I'm wrong about something," she said, finding Ron's seriousness hard to deal with and filling his usual role of throwing humour into the conversation.

Ron looked down at their joined hands and let go with a sigh.

"I'm sorry you wasted your time waiting for me." He mumbled.

"Stop that," she slapped his arm harder this time, "for one thing you are never a waste of my time, for another I was never going to give up on you coming back."

"But sorry anyway."

She looked at his face for a moment and then decided to tell him something she hadn't considered ever mentioning up to that point.

"Ron, while I waited for you, my friend, I didn't stop living my life."

"God no, of course not. I wouldn't have wanted you to. I'm glad you didn't." He fell over each sentence with the next as he tried to convey every thought in one.

"Because I wasn't totally lonely and sad during those five years, you know? I did...have a couple of boyfriends."

Ron looked a little taken aback, as if she'd shoved him away because of an unwelcome advance he'd just made, and stammered over his apology.

"S'rry I never meant t... Y'don... Y'jus-"

"I know," Hermione said as she reached to reassure him but shrank back from the bare skin again, there was something about Ron being bare chested that was stopping her having any kind of physical contact with him, "I didn't want you to put yourself down, thinking that I waited for you like that. I didn't. I waited a long time but not the whole time."

"Y'didn't have t'wait at all. We hadn't even..." Ron blurted.

"I know you're feeling guilty about Gabrielle, whatever you might have done during the summer, but don't be because it's not as if I'm a virgin either."

Something indescribable happened behind Ron's eyes and Hermione wondered if she'd just bruised his ego, maybe there was a little selfish jealousy, but she kept those observations to herself.

"So we're both different people to who we were before," she continued, "but exactly the same friends. If you ever want to talk to anybody other than Harry about Gabrielle you can come to me. All right?"

Ron nodded and swallowed. He was about to step back but his heels were already bumping against the sack of potatoes behind him. He flung out his arms and 'windmilled' a little before regaining his balance and stepping forward.

"I'll er," he gestured to the house, "just go and shower."

"And I'll put in some earplugs and let your mum know she's got two academics in the family," Hermione grinned and waved the results letter before her.

Ron nodded and set off without a word.

There was something about letting go of the secret that made it stop feeling as if she'd cheated on him. Of course she hadn't. She hadn't betrayed Ron by having sex with her boyfriends any more than Ron had betrayed her by doing it with Gabrielle.

Speaking of Gabrielle...

_Crack!_

"Professor!" The young woman gasped as she saw Hermione, "My letter, eet came, 'as Ron 'eard yet?"

"Yes he has, Gabrielle, he did brilliantly. He even got an Outstanding in one subject." Hermione smiled with pride.

"Oh! I 'ave to congratulate 'im!"

She ran into the house and Hermione followed, knowing Molly would soon be demanding to see Ron's results now that Gabrielle was about to announce their arrival.

* * *

Ron started the shower and threw his dirty t shirt into the washing basket. As steam began to billow around him he toed off his grubby trainers and pulled his unpleasantly damp socks off too. He heard a knock on the door and threw the smelly things into the basket before calling through the closed bathroom door.

"Five minutes!"

"Ron, it's me!"

Ron froze for a moment and then opened the door a crack to peer out at Gabrielle.

"Gabs, what're you doing he-"

"I 'ave my results at last and I came to see if yours came too!"

"Oh right, yeah," Ron said as he opened the door a little more and leaned against the doorframe. "So how did you do?"

"I exceed all expectations!"

"Every last one of them?" Ron gasped.

"I know, amazing isn't it?" She bounced on the balls of her feet. "'ow did you do, apart from your Outstanding of course."

Gabrielle beamed and lunged forward to smoosh a kiss against his lips.

"How did you know about that?"

"Professor Granger told me. She's gushing with your muzzer right now."

Ron nodded and folded his arms across his rake thin, mucky chest. He listened to Gabrielle's delight for both of them and thought about what Hermione had told him.

_She had had sex with two different people and it was okay because he was having sex with Gabrielle. It was normal and healthy and waiting for somebody you never thought you'd have was silly._

He leaned in close and kissed Gabrielle deeply. She hummed with pleasure and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

"Would you like me to scrub your back?"

Ron licked his lips, looked to the shower, and immediately felt like chickening out.

"Maybe you should wait in my room."

"I would miss all the fun," she said with arched eyebrows.

Ron leaned in and kissed her again before breaking away a little and speaking as softly as he could over the sound of the running water.

"You sure?"

She smiled widely and pulled off her flimsy scarf.

"I've been sure for weeks," she said with glee, "and you are too much of a gentleman. Now get out of these," she plucked at his grubby jeans, "and into that." She nodded towards the bathtub with the shower running into it.

"We maybe...uh, maybe a..."

"We can get you clean togezzer!"

Ron pulled off his jeans and kicked them into the corner. Gabrielle slipped out of her skirt and laid it on the towel rail. Ron looked at her, then lunged for the door to make sure it was locked behind her, and then waited for her to unbutton her blouse.

"Get in," she said as she shimmied the thin fabric off her shoulders.

Ron hooked his thumbs inside his pants and hesitated.

"I've seen one before Ron," she laughed.

"You have? When?"

"I 'ave seen Fleur's suitors climbing out of 'er bedroom window late at night. My bedroom is beneath 'ers. Lots of dangling."

"Bloody hell, does Bill know?"

"Bill was a virgin, was he?"

Ron rubbed his face, roughly and Gabrielle reached behind her to unfasten her bra. He became distracted by her actions and she giggled.

"People 'ave sex and it's fun and they aren't bad people. Zey also don't 'ave to get married." She said as the bra fell between them and Ron became unbearably aware that he was wearing nothing but his least sexy pants.

She began to push down her knickers and Ron made a noise at the back of his throat and then looked away.

"You are allowed, I am your girlfriend." She said, kindly not mocking his old fashioned manner.

"My mum's downstairs," he heard himself mumble.

"And ze door is locked. Come on."

She stepped under the hot water and began to massage it through her long hair. Ron nodded to himself as he remembered Hermione's declaration that she still had boyfriends and sex while he was gone.

Now Ron had a girlfriend. He had a girlfriend naked in the shower. He had a girlfriend who was naked in the shower and waiting for him to join her. He hurriedly yanked off his pants and threw them into the same corner as his filthy jeans.

"I've been gardening, I'm wearing my crappy stuff 'cause it was just gardening. If I'd have known-"

"You would 'ave put on your best clothes to shower?" She teased.

Ron laughed at himself and climbed over the edge of the bathtub, into the shower with her, and the water instantly plastered his hair to his forehead and over his eyes. Gabrielle slicked it back with both hands and then reached for a bar of soap to lather up.

"Would you...?" Ron began before losing his bottle and leaving the thought hanging, unspoken, between his dripping lips.

Gabrielle started to wash his chest and shoulders, smiling up at him.

"Go on, I'd do it if you just asked me to," she laughed.

"How did you know what I was gonna say?" Ron blurted.

"I didn't but I'll do whatever you want. I'd climb naked out of zis window if your muzzer knocked on the door."

Ron finally laughed and as he gave her a peck on the lips she lowered her hands and lathered up his stomach.

"You're still gonna come to Hogsmede to see me this week right?"

"Of course, a room at the pub for the night is arranged, why?"

Her hands moved around to his sides and her slippery thumbs rubbed against his skin.

"I was thinking," he stopped because he'd started to squirm and chuckle, "Gabs, not there, tickles."

She rolled her eyes and slid her hands around to meet behind his back.

"Anyway, I was thinking...that thing you wanted to do this summer? I think I can do it now. I mean I always could do it. I can _do it!_"

She giggled and lifted herself up on tiptoes to kiss his neck.

"Silly thing, you are ready to do it in our room during the week, no?"

"Yes! I mean, not yes, no, but yes that's right."

"Now you know you're a clever boy who deserves me eh?" She beamed, proudly.

"Yeah," he said with a relieved nod, "that's what was stopping me before."

She pressed him into the bathroom wall and kissed him thoroughly.

Now he knew he was allowed to he could do it.

Now he knew he wasn't saving himself for anyone it was time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Being Ron Part 5**

Sprawled out on his stomach, legs overhanging the sides of the bed, and mouth open and half crushed into the pillow, lay Ron.

The room suddenly filled with sunshine and his face scrunched up as he tried to burrow down into the mattress like a cockroach scurrying away from the light.

"Time to get up if you want a nice big breakfast before work Ronnie!" His mum was being way too loud and mum-like.

"Ughhhhhh," Ron groaned into the pillow and rolled away from any encouragement to get up, "fi'mre'minutes."

"The toast will have gone cold and your eggs are perfect and waiting for you." She said with that manipulative way of hers.

"That's not fair," Ron grumbled and pushed himself up on his elbows, hair sticking out all over the place and shielding his eyes from the sun, "that's food blackmail."

"Black pudding actually."

He sat right up and peered at her through his fringe.

"Really?"

"You're my genius, you deserve the breakfast of a king!" She beamed.

Ron rolled his eyes and slumped again.

"There I was thinking I was getting a full English because you loved me and all you care about his my brain."

She laughed and ruffled his hair.

"I love you for your beautiful face as well you know?" She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

"Ugh, mum!" Ron wiped his face with the back of his hand and threw back the covers. "All right, I'm coming."

Pig flew into the back of his head as he crossed the room and he tripped over the flapping leg of his pyjamas as they slipped down almost completely over his bottom.

"Or maybe it's your graceful movement," his mum teased while he chuckled and wiped the sleep from his eyes.

"I'm like a gazelle, I am." Ron yawned and padded his way towards the bathroom for a nice long morning wee, hitching up his pyjama bottoms as he went.

There had been drinking at Ron's _I'm an unexpected genius _party the day before and he hadn't quite got his head together yet. He remembered that he'd had his hands on Gabrielle a lot. He was touching her and she was grinning a lot.

Oh right, she was grinning a lot because they were going to have a naughty night in Hogsmeade in a couple of days.

They'd done lots of naughty things before, things his mother would deem naughty, and they had seen each other naked lots of times and slept in the same bed. He'd touched Gabrielle's private parts and she'd touched his.

Their parts weren't private anymore.

They were far from public parts. They were exclusive parts at the very least. They had exclusive access to each other's parts. Ron realised that he'd stopped weeing but was still holding his most exclusive part of all in his hand.

He glanced around, guiltily, and then thought about making sure his part was in full working order before realising that the bathroom mirror had a big mouth. He gave a tut and opted to was his hands and leave for breakfast instead.

He could have sworn he heard the mirror snigger.

He'd been thinking about the bit where they usually stopped and went to sleep. The bit after the kissing and touching and breathing, always so much heavy breathing, and now they were going to carry on to do the bit that's supposed to come before falling asleep.

He'd thought about it and Gabrielle was so excited about it and he'd drunk a bit too much. At some point he felt sure he'd tried to confide in Harry.

Ron suddenly rubbed his head and closed his eyes with a groan.

_Oh Merlin's testis, did he confide in Harry that he was a virgin?_

"Feeling rough are we, son?" Arthur put an arm around his shoulders and walked him to his seat at the kitchen table. "Get this lot down you and you'll be fine."

Fred and George were there. Why were Fred and George there? Did Fred and George know? If Fred and George knew he would kill himself.

"HELLO LITTLE BROTHER!" George bellowed into the side of Ron's head while wafting a slice of fried bread between them.

"HOW'S OUR FAVOURITE IDIOT SAVANT THIS MORNING?" Fred boomed into the other side of his face with his mouth full of partially masticated bacon.

"Ugh, you're disgusting...and evil."

"Like a naked Umbridge oiling a naked Fudge with partially melted lard," Fred said with a grin.

Ron shuddered, George looked at his twin and shook his head to let him know a revolting line had been crossed, and their father covered his eyes and moaned at the image now in his head.

"Why would you do that to anyone Fred? Why anyone but especially your loved ones?"

"He's evil," Ron muttered before puncturing the yolk of his friend egg and dipping the corner of his toast into it.

"Yet you can still eat," George said with a resigned shake of the head.

"It's not food's fault," Ron said with a shrug.

He ate for a minute before relaxing in the knowledge that the twins weren't about to torment him about his upcoming deflowering. Relaxing in the Weasley family is always a mistake.

A hand on his shoulder, a long curtain of red hair, and an amused whisper in his ear made everything clench again.

"I hope you're going to use protection young man. As your older sibling I'll be very disappointed if you get her pregnant first time."

_Oh shit, Gabs had told Fleur and Fleur had told Bill and now he had to talk about sex with his big brother!_

"Uh, Bill," he began as he turned his head and whispered back with urgency. He jumped when he saw Ginny's grinning face and inch from his. "Shit! Gin, what the fu-"

"You youngsters, I don't know," she sighed and shook her head as she ruffled his hair the same was Charlie always did.

"Gerroff," Ron swatted at her hand and turned in his chair to hiss his panic stricken question at her, "how d'you know?"

"You told me," Ginny said with a beaming smile and the eyes of a Weasley about to make you dance to their tune.

"I would _never_ have told you!"

"Well you did," she said, smugly.

"Why?"

"Because I'm older than you and it's my job to protect your honour and keep you from being taken advantage of," she didn't managed to finish the sentence without disintegrating into giggles and then pulling up a chair to force between Ron and Fred's chair.

"I'm older than you." Ron waggled his finger in her face, "I'm still older than you."

"No, no, no, you're the baby of the family and I have to bump my chest against any woman who comes near you and threaten them because you're so naive and vulnerable."

"You've made your point," Ron grumbled and cut into his bacon rasher.

Ginny shunted Fred further aside with her own chair as she forced it up to the table beside Ron and picked up a piece of toast.

"You were trying to tell Harry but Harry was drunk and thick and didn't get it." She buttered her toast and watched Ron impaling a piece of black pudding, tomato and egg on his fork. "I got it though."

He pushed the food into his mouth and chewed. The twins realised that they weren't going to eavesdrop on anything good and left the table with unanimous disappointment.

"And I think you are wonderful."

Ron almost choked on his mouthful, forcing it down and making his eyes water, before gaping at her.

"I'm really proud of you," she said with a smile.

Ron looked around in suspicion and Ginny rolled her eyes and picked up the fork from Fred's plate and stabbed the extendable ear that was flopping its way along the floor towards them.

"Seriously and with nobody listening," she said with a firm tone, "I understand why you were the way you were with my boyfriends now. I thought you were a hypocrite but you're really...you're just a proper gentleman."

Ron cleared his throat and turned his attention to downing his whole cup of tea in one go.

"The standards you expected from my boyfriends were the standards you held yourself to, and I respect that."

Ron wanted to put a tea cosy over his head and hide from all sight and sound. He pondered the invention of an invisibility tea cosy.

"If you need somebody to talk to, if you're worried about anything, you can talk to me." She patted the back of his hand.

"I can't talk to _you_, you're my _sister_!" Ron stared at her as if she'd gone insane.

Ginny rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Well try to talk to Harry again, now that he's sober, and if you ever need a woman's view then give the idea of talking to me a try."

"But I'm not gonna see Harry until..." Ron made a head nodding gesture to one side. It was as if he was silently motioning towards the near future.

"Okay, well I hear you've been getting on very well with Hagrid."

Ron's face fell and his snarled at her through gritted teeth.

"That's not even funny!"

Ginny struggled not to prove him wrong but her stifled giggles weren't stifled enough.

"I thought you weren't gonna take the piss." Ron grumbled.

"I'm not, you're just so difficult."

Ginny poured him another cup of tea and they sat and picked at his breakfast for a little while longer before the inevitable name came up.

"Could you talk to Hermione?"

"No," Ron said without hesitation, "no she...uh...just no."

"But you've both moved on and she said your friendship was back on track and everything was really good again. You've been talking to each other without all the sexual tension."

"And what better way to celebrate that then talking about sex, eh?" Ron pointed out with a ragged hiss, still paranoid that the twins had more than one kind of ear in the room.

Ginny shook her head.

"Well if you don't talk to somebody you'll end up talking yourself out of it. I know what you're like."

"No you don't," Ron said, frowning, "you only just found out I'm a gentleman."

She leaned over and kissed his temple.

"I always knew you were a gentleman, deep down."

* * *

"Assignments for today, pupil escort to greenhouses and Care of Magical Creatures lessons, are mine. Perimeter of the castle goes to Moyer," Lillycrap paused to nod towards one of his cronies, who looked fairy pissed off to get the job Ron had done all the previous week.

"You're on guard duty outside the headmistress' office" he waited for the young Auror to nod before going on, "and the rest of you are patrolling the corridors and providing escorts when professors ask for it."

Ron realised that this was his thank you for sparing Lillycrap the examination of the dead body with the Aurors. While the job was an improvement, he was still the outsider that nobody spoke to.

He'd make the most of the single step forward in his circumstances and just get on with it. When he passed Hermione in the corridors she'd smile and he'd remember Ginny advising him to talk to her about what was on his mind.

She thought it was off his mind a long time ago.

Of course she did. After the Quidditch match they'd flown to Griffindor tower and gone to his room together. Together alone and in his bed.

Then a summer in France together, what else would she have thought?

Ron began to ponder on the boyfriends Hermione had gone out with while he was gone all that time.

They were bound to have been serious blokes and serious relationships that lasted years because serious people don't have frivolous dates. Then they would have had serious sex.

He couldn't expect a woman like Hermione to have a grown up boyfriend for a year, two years, maybe more, and just hold hands.

Over the last year at school he'd grown close to Gabrielle and bonded with her over exams and lessons, Quidditch and family. Hermione would have found herself maturing and bonding and she had five years.

Ron couldn't feel hard done by. He shouldn't feel hard done by. So why was he trying so bloody hard not to feel that way?

He hadn't been cheated on or betrayed. He had a girlfriend and he'd not finished it with school to go back to Hermione. It wasn't as if he was going back really, he was never there with her in the first place after all, but he'd chosen not to pursue her.

He didn't think about her very much at all in France. He hadn't seen her at the Burrow and thought he'd made a mistake. It had been gradual, different.

It had been because she was his friend again, and she was an amazing friend. That was who he'd been attracted to in the first place, not Hermione Granger, but his friend.

At school she'd stopped being his friend, just his friend, and had to change who she was to him and how she was as well. Now that was over she was there, his Hermione, his friend.

He was seeing who he used to see again and it was because she was exactly who she was before he vanished. She was his best friend.

"Ron?"

He flinched out of his thoughtfulness and realised that Lupin must have tried more than once to get his attention.

"Oh, sorry!" he laughed, embarrassed.

"You looked very focused, in a not looking where you were going sort of way," Lupin said with a smile. "Everything all right?"

Ron took a moment before answering and looked at him. Was he yet another person who'd noticed the Aurors didn't like him and was taking pity.

"Yeah, fine."

"Sorry to interrupt you on the job but I have a work related favour to ask of you."

"Oh right, yeah, what do you need?" Ron cleared his head with a shake and gave Lupin his full attention.

"I'm taking my NEWT class into the forest tonight, Minerva has granted me permission as long as I have an Auror with me."

Ron nodded.

"I think it'll be okay, I mean it's a Hogwarts duty and that's what I'm authorised to do. Maybe I should check, though."

"You can use the fireplace in my office if you want to floo the department," Lupin offered.

Ron scratched his nose. He'd actually intended to find Lillycrap and ask him. Realising this was what he was planning to do made him feel a little stupid. The other Aurors were trainees just like him. They weren't in charge, they just acted like they were better than him.

"Yeah, thanks," Ron nodded and followed Lupin along the corridor.

He had to stop acting like an insubordinate. He was their equal and should be aiming to be their better. Why on earth was he going to ask that prick, Lillycrap for permission to do his job?

_Fuck them all if the fact Lupin asked him to do it and not them. Fuck them all. He didn't need them to like him, the sods._

"So what are you teaching them?" Ron asked.

"Whatever comes at them will be what they learn about. There might be three things at once, it might be totally uneventful, or we might be run over by a feral car."

Ron sniggered.

"Um, yeah."

"Expect the unexpected, that's the lesson, and you've been in there enough times to have experienced most of the unexpected yourself."

"We're not going anywhere near Aragog and his lot," Ron said with a warning glance.

"And you know where that is and can steer the class away," Lupin said with a tired smile, "it's why I wanted you to escort us and not the others. They've never even been in there once, what good are they going to be?"

Ron nodded to himself.

"Yeah, I'm not getting special treatment, I'm just the best man for the job."

"Special treatment?" Lupin snorted. "That was special, walking around the castle every night last week, was it?"

Ron laughed and Lupin unlocked the door to his office and showed Ron inside.

* * *

While it was a little embarrasing, or would have been if he ever let anybody know it had happened, Ron couldn't help but smile as he stuffed the small bundle, wrapped in crumpled brown paper, into his pocket. Hagrid had made him sandwiches. He chuckled to himself and tried to straighten his face as the seventh years approached with their teacher.

It wasn't as if the sandwich would be edible anyway, he thought.

"Here's our Auror for the evening," Lupin announced. "We're lucky to have a guardian who has plenty of experience in the forest. The only person who knows it better is Hagrid himself."

"Firenze wouldn't agree with that," Ron said as he lit the tip of his wand and glanced over his shoulder into the trees.

"What do we hope to see tonight, Ro... Auror Weasley?" Lupin corrected himelf.

"Hope?" Ron said with eyebrows raising. "Well if you go into the forbidden forest you should always hope you don't see anything. You've had a lucky break if you don't see anything at all."

"Very true," Lupin turned to his class. "Can you believe the hypocrisy of this man? _He's_ telling _us _not to go looking for trouble!"

Everybody laughed and Ron suddenly remembered his own reputation. He'd been so used to being ignored that he forgot that, to some people, he was quite notorious."

"Well we could _hope _to see some unicorns," Ron conceded.

"Unicorn." A student piped up.

"There's more than one in there," Ron said as he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder towards the forest.

"No sir," the small young man said, throwing Ron with the whole 'sir' thing for a moment, "it's like sheep, one unicorn, two unicorn."

"It's unicorns," a familiar know-it-all voice called out from behind the students.

The crowd turned and looked at Professor Granger.

"Well now I know why all your essays have no plurals," she said to the diminutive student.

"Are you joining us, Professor Granger?" Lupin asked her. "You have just as much experience in these woods as our Auror here."

"Not quite," she said, "I didn't break the rules like my friends did."

Ron snorted loudly and then pretended he was coughing. The students sniggered. Hermione shook her head back and lifted her chin with defiance.

"I came to visit my friend, Hagrid. Playing silly beggars in the forest is behind me now."

Ron smirked.

"Go on, you know it's fun," he teased her, "you led an expedition in there before. Umbridge _loved_ it!"

Hermione tried not to laugh but soon gave in.

"Why not?" She said with a sigh of resignation.

"Light your wands, stay alert, and do whatever Auror Weasley says." Lupin's words were firm and clear.

He took the rear, Hermione walked alongside the students, and Ron went ahead of the group. He felt slightly nervous about something leaping out at him and his brave scream of terror showing him up as the coward he was.

"Would you like to hold my hand?" He heard Hermione asking a trembling Ravenclaw girl.

He glanced back and smiled at her. She smiled back and squeezed the girl's hand.

"Being frightened isn't anything to be ashamed of."

"That's easy for you to say, Professor, you're head of Gryffindor."

"Being brave comes hand in hand with being scared y'know?" Hermione said. "If you walked in here unafraid then it wouldn't be a brave thing to do...you'd also be amazingly stupid!"

Both witches laughed and Ron felt proud of Hermione. She was such a good teacher. As a student she found it hard to be liked but as a teacher her compassion for others and love of learning and teaching had her in her element. She was a natural because she always had the belief in people that they could do better.

She was right too. Gryffindors weren't fearless, they were terrified of lots of things, but bravery comes alongside fear. On the outside people could be seen as perfect but the truth of things was that you can only have perfection with a few flaws.

If he was to be an Auror people would look at him as he was cool, aloof and better than ordinary folk.

That's how the Malfoys thought of themselves.

The perfect Auror was a human being who could be scared, who could mess things up but fix their mistakes, and who could be as normal as any decent witch or wizard.

Ron pulled the package of sandwiches from his pocket and looked at them.

"What's that, Auror Weasley, is it a weapon?"

"I don't doubt it for a second," Ron said, smiling down at the brown paper bag, then turning to look at the lanky Hufflepuff who'd asked the question. "These are the sandwiches Hagrid made me for tonight."

The young men, clearly wrong footed that the tough guy they were trying to impress had just told them that he had a packed lunch made for him but the soppy Care of Magical Creatures teacher, gaped at him. Some of the girls giggled.

"He didn't make me any sandwiches!" Lupin said, feigning hurt feelings.

"Me neither," Hermione folded her arms across her chest and huffing.

"I suppose I'm his favourite then." Ron smirked. "Bad luck you two. I have a boulder made of bread to fend off any ravenous Crumple-Horned Snorkacks while you'll just have to use each other as shields."

Some of the group laughed and several of the boys smiled and relaxed. It wasn't going to be a masculinity contest after all.

Good thing too, Ron thought, because as soon as he saw a spider he'd be hiding behind Hermione's cloak until she got rid of it for him.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N Sorry for the delay, my netbook battery ran out and I lost some of what I wrote. _

_Thanks to Shocolate for the read through and this chapter is dedicated to Republic of Ireland supporters._

**Being Ron Part 6**

Sitting beneath a tree, watching Lupin wading through lupines, and students attempting to pen in something Ron assumed was the result of a Niffler mating with a Blast Ended Skrewt, they fell into silence until Hermione nudged him in the ribs and smiled.

"Penny for them?"

Ron blinked and looked at her.

"Huh?"

"Or a Knut maybe?" Her smile widened.

"Sorry?" Ron frowned, missing the point altogether.

"Nothing," she said with a sigh, looking back at the class as they fell over backwards as a Blast Ended Niffler propelled itself out of the ground on a jet of flame before diving head first back into the soil.

"You can't contain them with a fence or a simple boundary," Ron called out, "you need a spherical spell to hold them in one place."

"Anybody know of a spherical containment spell?" Lupin asked his students.

Ron drew his knees up and hugged them to his body with a bracing huff.

"Cold innit?"

"Small talk," Hermione said with a nod, "okay then, I'll play along. Yes, it is a bit chilly tonight."

Ron looked back at her, eyebrows crinkled together in the middle.

"Am I supposed to be saying sorry for something? Did I do something when I was drunk at the party?"

"No," Hermione said with a shake of the head and a laugh, "you just seem to be distracted and I was trying to get you to talk about it. Unfortunately you were so distracted you didn't pick up on that."

"Oh," Ron said as he pretended to scan their surroundings with his trained eye to make sure the class was safe.

Hermione could tell he was avoiding the subject. She was kind enough to let it go.

"So when did you last see your car?" She glanced around into the forest behind them too.

"It's been years now," Ron said, relaxing now they'd left what was on his mind as a topic of conversation, "I don't know if its still here. It might have rusted solid. Maybe it fell in love with a milk float and they ran off to Guernsey together."

"Why Guernsey?"

"Why not Guernsey?" Ron finally turned his head to meet her eye again. He gave a shrug and a small smile.

Hermione bit her lip and looked into his eyes for an uncomfortably long time. She finally puffed out her cheeks with a deep exhalation and glanced at the students to make sure they were still a good way away.

"Could I... Would we be able to confide in each other now, do you think?" She looked back at him and saw him raising his guard.

"I'm fine, really."

"Good," she said with a nod and an expression that made it clear she didn't believe that for a second, "that's good, but if I needed to talk to you would you mind?"

"No," he said, turning his whole body towards her and putting his hand on her shoulder, "what's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter," she smiled, "I just wanted to know if we could be there for each other. We can call on one another or send an owl or something if we needed to talk. I know we argued a lot before you went away but we could always... I'm really glad to have you back in my life as a friend, Ron."

He squeezed her shoulder and then turned back towards the group of students sending spells all over the place.

"They hate me," he mumbled.

Hermione's eyes widened and she gasped as she looked at the busy students.

"They worship you!"

"Not them.," Ron shook his head and looked down at his feet.

She shuffled along and linked her arm with his, squeezing tightly.

"You don't need them to like you," she said, taking him by surprise as he was sure he'd get the 'they're just jealous' speech he was used to, "just like you didn't need the Slytherins to like you."

"I had you and Harry with me when they didn't like me, though."

"And you have us now."

He looked at her and smiled.

"That's not it, is it?" Hermione said, annoyingly scrupulous at reading his moods.

He shook his head.

"You can tell me if you want to."

"I can't," he admitted, reluctantly.

She looked disappointed but let it go.

Ron realised that he was pretty much admitting by omission that he needed to talk to somebody about Gabrielle. Gabrielle was the only thing he couldn't talk to Hermione about. He couldn't even bring it up as being the reason because he was scared of ruining everything between them. They'd re-built the bridge and he wasn't knocking it down for anything.

He bowed his head and sighed as he realised that things weren't really back the way they were between the two of them. There was a deep fracture that would split all the way through until they were broken again and all it would take would be a discussion about his sex life.

"Right," Hermione said as she slapped her hands against her thighs and grunted to her feet, "I can't stand it so I'm going over there to help. Maybe they'll have me."

Ron's head snapped up and he watched her go with his jaw flapping before he swore under his breath and drove the heel of his boot into the earth in frustration.

"Stupid fucking sod!"

* * *

Hagrid tried and failed to tiptoe past Ron as the cock crowed. Fang even appeared to be trying to tread softly. Unfortunately, their efforts were pointless as Ron was laying on his side with his eyes open, watching them.

"Agh bugger!" Hagrid said as he stopped creeping towards his front door. "I didn't want teh wake yer."

"Y'didn't," Ron said as he sat up, "I was already up."

Fang shuffled over and smeared his cool wet nose against Ron's warm skin. He smiled and ruffled the folds of wrinkled fur around the dog's face.

Hagrid frowned.

"Yeh got in late last night."

"Yeah, sorry," Ron scratched the back of his head, hair sticking out at gravity defying angles much like Harry's did, "I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Don't yeh worry about tha'. I was jus' tryin' to give you some sleep. Y're looking done in."

"No, I'm fine," he planted his large bare feet on the floor and stretched his arms with such conviction several joints cracked.

"What are ya gettin' up for?" Hagrid made a waving gesture to encourage Ron to lie back down. Fang misunderstood this and jumped up at Ron, knocking him flat and winding him with the weight of his huge body.

"Okay!" He wheezed. "God you're heavy!"

"Fang, get down now," Hagrid was pulling the dog back by the scruff of his neck, "you'll snap 'im in two! Stop it now."

Ron was freed from Fang's weight and lay, flattened and gasping, across his improvised bed.

"We'll be on our way, you get some sleep, and then we can all sit down and have breakfast. I'll check the 'ens and if they're still not laying I'll ring the cock's neck and we'll eat 'im."

"Cock for breakfast," Ron said, wearily, "yummy."

He rubbed his eyes and then stared up at the ceiling. Hagrid wrestled Fang through the door and outside before closing the door and turning to look back at Ron, fretfully.

Ron peered through his fingers at him and then frowned.

"You forgot something?"

Hagrid scratched his chin through his bushy beard and then shook his head with a chuckle.

"Have you even been to sleep yet, Ron?"

"Yeah," Ron said, defensively, "well...on and off."

Hagrid looked at him with an alarming degree of astute scrutiny.

"I'm a little bit restless," Ron admitted.

"Is it them lot in that tent?" Hagrid growled.

"No," Ron said as he shook his head, "I'm just...there's a lot... I'm excited actually!" He forced a smile onto his face. "Gabrielle's coming up and we're going to spend some time together."

Hagrid beamed.

"That'll be nice fore yeh. I bet she's been missin' all the attention."

"Yeah," Ron relaxed a little, "she's feeling neglected so we're gonna spend some time alone." He paused, bit his lip, and then looked away with a blush. "I er...won't be home tonight."

"No sleep for another night eh?" Hagrid said, far too enthusiastically. "You get some now then, she won't be impressed to see those bags under your eyes."

"I'll try," Ron said, unable to understand why everybody thought he was a veteran of many nights of passionate sex with his girlfriend.

Hagrid opened the door and whistled for Fang. The door slammed shut and Ron pulled the blanket over his head. He was supposed to get some sleep but his mind was buzzing. Ordinarily he'd relish the chance to have a lie in. Ordinarily he'd whine for a little longer before he had to get up. Ordinarily he'd be able to fall asleep mid conversation if he wanted to.

He fumbled under the covers and then sighed to himself.

Ordinarily, he'd have a morning glory.

Today, of all days, Ron's dick wasn't interested.

* * *

He stepped out of the bathroom and looked around at the room he'd just paid for. It didn't look as fancy as the rooms at the Delacour's place but he wouldn't be able to afford a night at a place like that.

Gabrielle wouldn't mind, she liked the Burrow, but Ron decided to attempt to disguise the naff wallpaper and clashing curtains with some 'mood lighting'. He swapped the lanterns for candles and pulled the garish chintzy bedspread off only to see that the white sheets were a little off white after having been washed and washed and washed again over at least a decade.

He saw that the other side of the bedspread was plain and uninviting but that was better than the floral rhubarb and custard catastrophe emblazoned across it. He remade the bed and then folded his arms across his chest.

He huffed and wandered back into the bathroom to look at his reflection in the mirror.

He'd combed his hair very neatly and felt ridiculous. His shook his head and then dishevelled his copper locks a little.

"What time is she getting here?" The mirror asked him.

"Half seven," Ron answered, un-tucking his shirt.

"Your body looks long no matter what you do, that way you'll flash your belly when you lift your arms."

"Yeah but... Why am I taking fashion advice from a mirror?" Ron snapped.

"Because it's a quarter to eight and she's not here yet?"

Ron looked at his watch, eyes bulging, and swore. He was supposed to be down in the bar to meet her fifteen minutes ago. He bounded out of the room and descended the stairs like a stampede of male Hippogriffs on the scent of a female on heat.

He tripped at the foot of the stairs and then steadied himself in the doorway. He leaned into the bar and scanned over people's heads for Gabrielle's distinctive hair. His vision was blocked by a pair of soft, small hands.

"For fifteen minutes, you 'ave to kneel before me."

"Sorry I'm late," Ron said as he turned to face her, her hands falling away from his eyes as he moved, "though, to be fair, I'm not. I was here, just not here." He gestured around himself.

"You apologise on your knees," she said as she rose up onto her toes and draped her arms around his neck, "for making me wait for this."

She pulled him down until their lips met and she kissed him. They smiled against each other's lips and then became conscious that they were drawing attention to themselves and separated. Ron held her hand and cleared his throat.

"So, do you want to go to our room?"

Gabrielle looked up at him and arched an eyebrow.

"We can stay down here and talk for a while," Ron said, hurriedly, "if you...if you don't want to be anti-social."

"Maybe a drink to calm our nerves?" Gabrielle suggested with a smile.

"Yeah, great idea, I asked for a bottle of red wine to be kept for us. You like red don't you?"

"I love vin rouge."

"Yeah, I asked when I booked the room because they don't have much business for wine here but they can get something out of the cellar sometimes an-"

Gabrielle squeezed his arse and he stopped talking.

"Relax," she whispered as she moved her hand around to his waist and hugged him to her side, "you look very handsome and you arranged wine for me. I'll make sure you enjoy yourself on your knees."

Ron smiled at her and then nodded towards the stairs.

"The wine's upstairs but we can have a drink down here first if you like."

"I'd like to go up to our room now," Gabrielle said with a nudge of the hip against his thigh.

Ron nodded and then took her hand once more to lead her up the stairs.

Everybody knew what they were going to do. It was so obvious. They were so obvious. The thing was that it didn't really matter because everybody thought this was a drop in the ocean for them. Nobody knew it was their first time, nobody but Ginny, and he suddenly felt his face burning red at the thought of her teasing him about it.

He led Gabrielle up the stairs and tried not to think of Ginny and her brand new older sister routine. She never had more experience in things than he did. His missing five years had turned his whole world topsy-turvy. At least his relationship with his mum was still the same. Mother hen and baby boy, that hadn't changed.

They were walking along the landing towards the door to their room for the night now and Ron realised that now was not the time to be thinking about his mother.

_Oh fuck, now there's nothing else but that!_

If his mum knew what he was doing, what people in the pub downstairs all knew he was doing, she'd be... What would she be? Disappointed, angry, upset?

Was this ungentlemanly?

He opened the door and Gabrielle gasped at the candlelit setting he'd prepared.

"Oh! Oh Ron, this is why you were late? D'accord, we can both be on our knees, this is beautiful!"

Did his mum think he'd lost his virginity already too?

"It's a bit crap really but..." he mumbled and Gabrielle pulled him inside and then pushed him against the door with her embrace, closing the door behind them, and kissed him passionately.

Then again, she was always naive about her children, especially the younger ones, and she might think or at least hope that he was still pure. She'd kick the door down if she knew he was losing his virginity in an upstairs room at pub.

_Stop thinking about your mother!_

"What are you thinking about?" Gabrielle said as she gazed up at him.

"Uh... You look really pretty."

She hopped up and wrapped her legs around his body as she gave him so much tongue he wondered if there was magic at work, what she was doing didn't seem possible. He staggered with her in his arms and then dropped to his knees and set her down. Both on their knees, as Gabrielle had said they would be, they moved their hands all over each other's body.

"I'd worry that you've been practicing this but," Ron kissed her again, swallowing her tongue and then tilting his head to one side and slowly dragging back, "I know you wouldn't."

"Nobody can make me kiss zis good, nobody but you!" Gabrielle shuffled forward on her knees and nestled on his lap, hands weaving into his hair. "I've missed 'aving you with me every day. I've missed talking," she kissed him as he moaned into her mouth, "to you," she kissed again and then sighed as she felt his lips pressing against her neck, "and I've been waiting for this...Oh! Je t'aime!"

Ron stopped and looked into her eyes. He pressed his lips together and then took a deep breath in. Kissing her lightly on the lips and then stroking her hair he smiled.

"I do love you Gabs, I always love my best friends."

She smiled at him and kissed him on the lips, lightly.

"Best friends forever, whatever 'appens, yes?"

"Promise."

"Good." She grinned widely and hugged him.

"No, I mean, _you promise_," Ron said, seriously, "promise me you mean it because I really do love you and I don't want to ruin things doing this and lose another best friend because of...stuff not working out."

She cupped his face in her hand and looked at him with pride.

"You didn't lose 'ermione and you will never lose me. We don't 'ave to get married just because we do this."

"I know," Ron nodded, face still set in a sincere frown, "but still..."

"I promise."

Ron let go of his tension and cradled her head as he kissed her with a firmness that felt as if he was handling something fragile, like catching an egg and not breaking it with his big manly hands.

"Let's uncork this wine then, eh?" He smiled at her.

He was about get up to get the bottle when Gabrielle grabbed him by the wrist and kept him with her.

"_Accio vin rouge_!"

She caught it and Ron chuckled before summoning the corkscrew. Gabrielle read the label and then looked at him as if he was insane.

"Corvina Veronese?"

Ron tilted his head to read.

"Uh, yeah, is it not good?"

"It's not French!"

Ron stared at her and blinked, then he smiled a lopsided smile at her while uncorking the bottle.

"I'm not French either and you like me."

Gabrielle looked at the bottle and shook her head, disapprovingly.

"You give a French girl Italian wine."

"Vive la difference!" Ron said as he poured the wine into two glasses.

"The French make the best wine, just like...the...Tornadoes play the best Qui-"

Ron froze. Even the wine seemed to stop pouring.

"That had better be a joke."

Gabrielle tipped the bottle up and took the glass with a smile.

"I should try it first I suppose."

Ron poured himself a glassful and watched her sip the wine like a connoisseur.

"I could put a beret on it if you like," Ron said as he sniffed his wine in an imitation of her, "maybe a string of tiny onions around the neck of the bottle."

Gabrielle laughed and shoved him.

"It isn't bad for an Italian wine...I suppose."

"And the Cannons are?"

"The Cannons are underrated and nurture home grown talent rather than throwing money at spoiled prima donnas who bribe the referees and cheat."

"French people cheat." Ron mumbled.

"Excusez-moi?"

"The French cheat at Quidditch."

Gabrielle gaped at him.

"Do you want to 'ave sex tonight or not?"

Ron drank some of his wine and gave a one shouldered shrug.

"The Cannons pride themselves on good sportsmanship and St Etienne...won the European cup by cheating. Everybody knows Glentoran should have won that match. The Irish got screwed by the ref."

"And you won't be screwed at all if you carry on like this," Gabrielle warned him, playfully.

"Drink some more wine," Ron said as he took another mouthful.

"Dutch courage is it?" She asked, noticing that he was being as unromantic as possible.

"Well that suggests that only the Dutch can be brave, surely the French invented bravery?"

He smirked at her and she shoved him in the chest. They both laughed. She drank a little more wine and then crawled forward to kiss him.

"I think Italian wine tastes better this way," she spoke into his open mouth before he lightly bit her lip.

"So," Ron said as he looked into her eyes and clutched his wine glass like shield, "I might be crap at this but if we both get drunk it won't matter."

She took the glass from his hand and set it down, then hers beside it, and ran her hands up his thighs as she tilted her head to one side and smiled.

"I don't want to be drunk, I want to be relaxed, and you to be relaxed," she kissed the corner of his mouth and then whispered in his ear, "we'll drink slowly and talk to each other and kiss some more. Stop worrying about where we'll end up and enjoy this."

"But it's up to me how long it lasts and I have to do the charm to stop you getting pregnant an-"

"I have a charm too," she said as she kissed him again, full on the mouth this time, "and you are a young man and Fleur said that the young men can go again and again and again in the same night. If the first one is fast the next will be longer and the one after that..."

"Three times?" Ron felt dizzy. "I haven't even done it once and I don't know what I'm doing and..._three times_!"

"I don't care if it's three seconds one time," Gabrielle huffed, "stop worrying about it and let's just..." she wrapped her arms around his narrow back and slid her tongue between his parted lips, lapping at the tip of his and then easing in a little deeper.

Ron made a low vibrating sound into her mouth and massaged his tongue against hers as he matched the movement of her hands upon his back.

What was wrong with him? She was a beautiful woman, way out of his league, and she wanted him. Why wouldn't he have sex? She'd just told him it didn't even matter if he was crap. Where else would he find a woman who didn't mind if he was crap?

The kiss broke and he reached for his glass of wine.

He knew of one other woman who wouldn't have minded.


	7. Chapter 7

**Being Ron Part 7**

They had gone from snogging on their knees to slumping against the wall, an arm around the other while cradling their wine glass in the other hand, seated on the floor.

"I'm beginning to think the bed feels snubbed," Ron said as he looked at the pristinely made double bed.

"I think you are so used to 'aving to sleep on uncomfortable floors and 'agrid's armchair. A big bed is a luxury you don't think you deserve."

Ron turned his head and looked down at her smiling face.

"No, that's what you are."

She strained her neck reaching for his lips and they brushed together with a light smack before they slumped into each other's sides again. They sighed, squeezed the other, and then took a sip of their wine.

"We're never going to get into that bed are we?" Gabrielle sighed.

Ron looked at her, then glanced at the bed, and turned back to kiss the top of her head through her soft hair.

"We will. I think I terrified my cock into submission but we can go to bed together like we...like normal."

"This was nice, even without the sex, I like being like this again."

Ron looked at her once more, for a long time, and then drained his glass before nodding to himself.

"Right," he said to himself as he grunted to his feet.

He slid his arms under her and lifted her off the floor. She squealed and he carried her to the bed and set her down.

"I'm taking off my clothes now," he said, assertively.

Gabrielle's eyes widened and she made herself comfortable and watched him undress.

"I never knew agreeing not to 'ave sex was such a turn on!"

Ron's mouth curled up on one side and his eyebrow arched to match it.

He pulled off his shirt and tossed it aside, then he slid his belt through the loops and threw it to Gabrielle, who clutched it and watched him unbutton his fly. She pulled his belt tight between her hands and laid back on the bed, watching him.

He lost his dignity a little as he hopped up and down on one leg as he tried to free his other leg from his tight clothing and soon sat on the edge of the bed in his underwear, kicking away with his feet until all that were left were pants and socks.

He immediately regretted not taking off his socks earlier.

He peeled them off and threw them aside before leaning over Gabrielle and kissing her flat into the mattress.

"I feel overdressed," she gasped as she began to shimmy out of her flimsy silk dress, revealing thermal underwear.

Ron starred at her attire for a moment and then laughed.

"Very sexy," he said with an appreciative nod, "good to see you made an effort for me."

"Do you 'ave any idea how _cold _it is in this country?"

"Funnily enough, I do," Ron said looking down at his exposed body.

He lit the fire in the hearth and then lifted the waistband of his pants to look at his manhood.

"Give it a minute to warm up and we'll be fine."

Gabrielle laughed and threw herself at him, thermals to freckled skin, and they rolled around on the covers until she became too hot and peeled away her 'Long Johns' as Ron called them so they were both practically naked.

"You wore sexy underwear under the thermals," Ron said with a chuckle, "only you could get away with that."

"I did think about stockings and suspenders but..."

As Ron laughed, his body jiggled against her and soon his pants were tenting between them.

"Somebody's warmed up, Gabrielle said with a waggle of her elegant eyebrows.

Ron swallowed and then squirmed.

"Uh," he said as he rolled off her and then looked around the cluttered floor, "d'you remember where my wand went? I need to do a..."

"I've used the charms already," she said as she slid her knickers down her thighs and kissed his neck.

"Yeah but doubling up won't hurt will it?"

She held his face with both hands and forced him to meet her gaze.

"Don't do this again, don't worry about anything, not now."

She kissed him and closed her eyes. They rolled over on the bed so she was straddling him and she pushed down into his mouth for a deeper kiss. Ron wove his fingers through her hair as it tumbled about her milky white shoulders and lifted his hips so she could ease his pants down. She pulled them the rest of the way with her foot, while caressing his chest with one hand and gripping his hipbone with the other.

Ron's breathing hastened and their kiss broke as he gasped against Gabrielle's mouth.

"Calm," she whispered in a soothing tone, rubbing her hand up and down his arm, "calm down and kiss me."

She lowered herself back down against him and he pushed against her with both palms.

"Wait, don't!" He said in a panic.

"Ron?"

He forced his eyes closed and gritted his teeth. Gabrielle looked worried about him and leaned forward, her hair brushing against his stomach and her breast pressing into his body.

"Oh fuck!" Ron yelped as he bucked his hips under her.

"What? Wait!" Gabrielle went from confused to panicked as she realised what was about to happen.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

Ron was pumping his hips up into thin air and arching his back away from the bed. Gabrielle moved and her leg lightly brushed against he bobbing dick. That was all it took.

"Merde!" She screamed as she fell off the edge of the bed as she tried to avoid the bodily fluid canon.

Ron was rigid with tremors all over and looked as if he was about to cry, burst out laughing, and wet himself at the same time. He held a pillow over his groin and shuddered before slumping in the foetal position on the bed.

"Oh God," he whimpered.

"It's okay," Gabrielle said, peering up over the side of the bed from the floor.

"Oh my God," Ron said, eyes wide with horror.

"We can try again in a little while," Gabrielle said as she got to her feet and moved towards the bed to sit, before freezing and then opting to stand with her arms folded across her naked chest instead.

"I'm so sorry," Ron said as he cringed in on himself, "I'm really sorry."

"Ron," she moved around the bed to crouch before him, "it's all right. In a way...it's flattering."

"Flattering?" Ron sat up and looked at her as if she was insane. "Flattering!"

"You were so... You were enjoying yourself so much that..."

"I came all over myself...all over the bed...all over the room!"

"This is something I think must happen to all men at first."

"How do you know?" Ron blurted.

"I hear people talking about things."

"Did Bill do it to Fleur?"

Gabrielle shook her head and looked as if this was a ridiculous idea.

"Of course not but, boys when she was younger, she would tell me about..."

"Boys," Ron said before dropping his head and hiding his face with his palm, "so men like Bill can satisfy a woman but stupid little virgin boys like me c-"

"No!" Gabrielle snapped at him and gave him a shove. "Bill was a virgin once too. I bet it 'as 'happened to Bill and to 'arry and to...Viktor Krum!"

"Why did you say Viktor Krum?" Ron's face fell as he stared at her.

"What? I just named a sporting 'ero. Somebody masculine you might look up to."

"Masculine!"

"Oh this was the wrong name," she whimpered to herself.

"So Viktor could be man enough to fuck a woman because he's a proper man?"

"I didn't say that, I said even he would...

"Even a real man would have been as crap as me once, right?"

"Why are you putting words into my mouth?"

"Maybe because I'm not man enough to put anything else in you!" Ron threw himself off the bed and scurried to the bathroom, pillow still clamped to his groin.

He slammed and locked the door behind him and sat on the toilet in stunned humiliation.

There was silence for a moment before a timid knock made him slump and groan, despondently.

"I think you should go home."

"I'm not going to leave you like this," Gabrielle responded through the closed door.

Ron rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"I can't come out. I'm too embarrassed."

"I should have said Charlie, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Krum is a real man."

"_You_ are a real man!" Gabrielle said with a thump against the bathroom door.

Ron heaved another sigh again.

"This was supposed to be a nice night for you," Gabrielle said, sounding glum, "you've been so unhappy out here and I wanted you to have a nice time. Please don't feel sad."

Ron unlocked the door and opened it. The pillow was still covering him. Gabrielle smiled, sadly at him.

"I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter," she said as she pulled the pillow away and looked down at his body, "you still look like a sexy man to me."

Ron's frown didn't change. He glanced over her shoulder at the state of the bed and cringed.

"They're gonna know what happened when they come to make the bed tomorrow."

"They will know nothing," Gabrielle said firmly, before turning to march towards the bed and pull at the sheets.

"No, Gabs, don't touch it!" Ron panicked and pulled her away from the sexual disaster area.

"We need to sleep somewhere tonight," she said as she took his hand, "and I want to sleep with you, Ron."

He squeezed her hand and then looked around for his wand. Spotting it underneath a sock, he picked it up and pointed it at the bed. After banishing everything but the mattress he looked at Gabrielle and she smiled.

"We can get dressed and sleep without covers," she said as she began to gather up her clothes.

"I love you y'know?" Ron said as he appreciated her kindness.

"I love you too," she said as she watched him flip the mattress over and then set about dressing himself.

* * *

The morning sunlight spilled through the crack in the curtains and unfurled a golden ribbon across the bed, bisecting their fully clothed bodies as they snuggled together.

The candles were still flickering but their wicks were considerably shorter. A trickle of wax overflowed from the candle on the bedside table and spread in a slowly setting puddle towards the edge. The last of the hot wax to pour down from the candle rushed along the hardening pathway and dripped over the edge onto the toecap of Ron's boot.

_Tup...tup...tup..._

Ron shifted and nudged himself closer into Gabrielle's body with a soft moan.

_Tup...tup...tup..._

Gabrielle stirred and opened her eyes, blinking around, blearily. She looked at Ron and watched him sleeping for a second before smiling and kissing his forehead. She settled down to sleep again and then noticed the sound.

_Tup......tup......tup......_

As the wax set the rhythm slowed. Gabrielle sat up and looked around.

"'ello?"

"Uh liddle bi'more, Gabs," Ron mumbled as he cuddled into her side even closer.

"Ron, I can 'ear tapping."

He cleared his throat and then squinted up at her.

"Mornin'."

"Listen," she said as she held up a finger and held her breath.

They both listened but the sound had stopped.

Ron lifted his eyebrows and looked at her. She shook her head and lay back down beside him.

They wrapped their arms around each other and she nestled her head beneath his chin. The dawn chorus was fading away into the occasional chirp from passing birds and there was movement downstairs.

Their eyes fell closed for a while and the band of light crept up the bed until it reached Gabrielle's closed eyes, making her squint and squirm to turn and face the other way. Ron grunted and looked around, spotting the bright light and holding up his hand to shield Gabrielle's face.

They lay together, Ron blocking the sun from her face until he was blocking it from his own. She smiled and propped herself up on her elbow so her shadow covered his face.

The shared a brief smile and Gabrielle stayed in position for five minutes, stroking her fingers, lightly, through his hair. When the light fell upon the wall she settled back down beside him and they both lay in silence, looking at each other.

There were aromas of bacon, eggs and hot buttered toast wafting up from downstairs now. Ron's stomach made a wet grumbling sound and they both chuckled. Gabrielle sighed and rested her head against his shoulder.

Her hand found his and they interlocked their fingers.

It was so much like their summer in France, the peaceful mornings, and they both dwelled on memories of their simple life. Simple, uncomplicated, happy. It was strange to be nostalgic for a time only six weeks earlier.

"Since things started to be about sex between us," Gabrielle finally spoke up, "we haven't been able to talk to each other like we usually do."

"I can talk to you about anything," Ron said as he rested his head in the crook of her shoulder.

"But you couldn't talk to me about how you felt about losing your virginity."

His silence was agreement enough.

"Do you think we should be the best, best friends instead of trying to be...?"

"But best, best friends can find each other... We can fancy each other and want to...do..."

The lay in silence, staring at the ceiling, until Gabrielle spoke again.

"You could be my 'arry."

He turned to look at her, incomprehensively.

"But I'm Ron."

"And Ron doesn't mind that his best, best friend has somebody else to love in a different way." She rolled onto her side and placed her hand on his chest. "We can be like you and 'arry and other people can be other things to us."

Ron looked upset.

"But you still come to me for everything and see me every week and if our other people don't like how close we are we tell them to fuck off and get rid of them."

His eyes widened.

"Wow."

"And not because of last night but because," she paused and leaned closer to kiss his cheek, "because you need me to talk to about your girlfriends and you can't do that when I am your girlfriend."

He shuffled over and hugged her to him tightly.

"You've got yourself a Harry."

She clung to him in return and they both tried to stop their welling eyes spilling over. It was almost a minute before either of them spoke up again.

"Suddenly I feel inappropriate," Ron said, causing Gabrielle to giggle.

"You never do this with 'arry?" She teased.

"Not yet we haven't," he said with a chuckle.

With a deep breath in, Ron slid free and sat up on the bed. He puffed out his cheeks with the exhalation and then leaned over to look for his wand. He spotted his boot and frowned. Stooping to pick it up he examined the wax coated toecap and then followed the tell tale splashes and stalactites of set wax up to the dribbling candle.

He looked over his shoulder at Gabrielle, gave her a half smile and a shrug, and then leaned forward.

With a short, puff, he blew out the candle.

* * *

He felt hollow for the rest of the day.

The only consolation was that he could still talk to her, they were still going to see each other every week, and he really was going to be her Harry.

But the day had been strange and he'd navigated his way through it without really knowing how he'd done it. It was almost as if he'd written a diary entry for the day in great detail and it had all vanished, as if written in invisible ink, and left only the date and a blank page.

But looking back on his day, his blank page, he knew that the void he was wading in was full of words. There was no way a real person who he had complex feelings for could melt away into indescript blankness. Just because what had happened between them and what they were to each other was more than words, it didn't mean that an empty sense of loss did it justice.

He picked at the last of the dried splashes of wax on his boot and flicked it away.

He was sitting on Hagrid's doorstep and watching the lights inside the castle gradually illuminating the castle until it was ablaze with golden light and the darkness around it an impenetrable black.

He started picking the wax from his boot as he laced them up in the room. Gabrielle brushing her hair and the morning light flooding into the room as the curtains were finally drawn back.

While he waited for the assignments with the other Aurors he picked some larger pearl-like droplets from the leather toe cap. Then he had wax under his fingernail and fiddled with that while nodding along to his dull duties being read out to him.

As he sat outside during a first year flying lesson he drove his thumbnail into the groove between the tread of his boot and the stitching, bonding the leather to it, he remembered thinking about Gabrielle. He thought about her and if he'd made a mistake. He thought about what a prat he'd been that night and he distinctly remembered questioning if maybe he'd be frozen in adolescence forever.

He wondered if he'd ever grow up.

Maybe Gabrielle was as mature and emotionally ahead of him as Hermione.

He remembered that he was still thinking about it as he took off his boot and scrubbed at it with a ratty brush in Flitch's cleaning cupboard, flecks of wax scraping off and clogging the wiry bristles.

Everybody would move on and emotionally evolve and he'd just stay the same for the rest of his life. He'd always be the same prat who backed into that cabinet all those years ago.

He remembered being distracted from thoughts of Gabrielle and picking wax off his boots by the urgent need to examine himself in the mirror. He stood in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and tried to find signs of aging on his young face. He was desperate to see some evidence of growing a year older anywhere.

He didn't look any different.

Maybe he'd never look any different.

He had a vague recollection of trying to scuff away some bits of wax that he'd missed with his other boot while standing guard over dinner in the Great Hall. He must have looked like shit because McGonagall gave him a look, that was between austere and apprehensive, and several minutes after she passed him on guard Madam Pomfrey approached him with a tiny bottle of dreamless sleep potion and whispered to him to have an early night.

So even if he didn't look older he clearly looked tired.

It was a day of no significance but a day full of thoughts, and specks of wax dried hard onto his boot, nonetheless. While a blank diary entry could have symbolically summed it up it wouldn't have done a good enough job. Emotions can't be empty, even when the emotion in question is emptiness itself.

He sat on Hagrid's doorstep and picked the last of the wax from the toecap of his boot as his host called him in for something to eat.

He took off his boots, ate a roast beef sandwich, drank a massive cup of tea and then downed his sleeping potion. All the while Hagrid didn't ask him any questions. He just talked to him about his day and Fang's new flea collar until Ron became drowsy at the table.

He woke up fully clothed in bed with Gabrielle and he went to sleep fully clothed in Hagrid's arms.

That was not a blank page day.

Hagrid set him down on his massive bed and covered him up, then fell asleep in his armchair with Fang at his feet.

So he didn't look a year older but he looked tired _and _unhappy.

During the night Fang drooled all over his boot.

Something had to change, otherwise Ron never would.


End file.
